The airlines have been making the news lately, and not in a good way. Being on the inside of it, so to speak, gives me perhaps a different perspective on things than the average person who just wants to mash their fingers onto twitter in a rage. Here's the thing: and this isn't just about the airlines, but life in general. I have learned that people are overly eager to rush to judgment, pick a side, form a blind allegiance, or proclaim their outrage for something they really do not understand in the first place.
Despite the ubiquity and ease of air travel, people might be surprised to know that flying a plane full of people across vast distances at high speeds is still a very complicated thing. But as I learned from my deadhead this evening from LAX to Monterey, there are many passengers who have it all figured out. The flight was initially delayed because of maintenance. The ice detection system wasn't working properly. I try and sit away from people at the airport, so I can relax, but they always find me. A lady scoffed, "You don't need ice detection! We're going to Monterey!" I tried to explain to her how the temperature drops as you go up in altitude and that a plane can get icing at altitude even if it's warm on the ground.
With the problem eventually solved, we boarded. I took my seat on the CRJ-200. As is often the case, there was a weight-and-balance issue, but adding ballast would put the plane above its max landing weight, so the crew attempted to shift some bags from the cargo into the overhead bins. The man in 2B exclaimed that this weight-and-balance excuse was "absolute bullshit." The girl across the aisle from me asked about it and I said weight-and-balance is a common issue with this particular aircraft due to its size and design, and I explained the usual ways we go about solving it and how the flight computer calculates how to correct it. Maybe 2B would rethink his comments.
Well the problem could not be resolved because we needed lots of fuel since Monterey's weather wasn't that great, there was a full load of passengers, and the movement of bags wasn't enough to convince the flight computer that everything was good to go. Eventually an agent came on asking for volunteers to take a flight that would leave 30 minutes later and offered $600. Two people volunteered immediately and this made the woman next to me quite cross. "They didn't give me enough time . . . I would have volunteered!" Then she continued by saying it was stupid that they didn't just ask for volunteers to begin with. Clearly the flight crew should have known better and should have immediately gone to the "kick people off the flight" option as opposed to trying to work through a solution that allowed everyone to stay on board and on their originally scheduled flight.
This was not an overbooked flight, but it did have three flight crewmembers on board who needed to get to Monterey to fly a plane out the following morning (one of those people being me). Now as the lady next to me wisely suggested, I should have gotten off the plane and driven to Monterey because I had plenty of time before our 6am departure. Without even bringing up FAA rest rules and regulations, I quickly pointed out to her that this was not practical. This solution would put my car in Monterey, while I would be back in Los Angeles. "Well, you would rent the car", she responded as if this could not be more obvious.
If anything, I hope this account just demonstrates how the traveling public have become backseat pilots, but really do not understand the actual situation. Can you imagine a scenario where nobody takes the money to take a later flight? Now imagine the plane is sitting at the gate, nothing's happening, and nobody is willing to give up their seat for compensation. What do you do? Do you cancel the flight entirely?, or do you try and take most of the passengers if you involuntarily bump a few passengers to a later flight? Now what if three of these passengers go quietly and one of them exits the plane, but then reenters without permission, retakes their seat and refuses to move? The flight crew tries to deal with the situation, but the passenger is not cooperating. They call airport security to deal with it. It's now out of the flight crew's hands. The social media policy of my company doesn't allow me to really discuss specific incidents so I gave you a hypothetical one, you see?
My point is that people are well . . . idiots. "Boycott X-Airline!" I'm sure you will. Right up to the point when X-Airline is the cheapest or most convenient option to take you from A-to-B. Of the current legacy carriers, you will essentially get the same level of service on each of them, yet people will swear that one is a better product or that they refuse to fly on one of the others. It's baseless and completely biased. All of them overbook, yes even your precious Southwest. What happened in the news recently could have happened on any major air carrier in the United States. Unlike many foreign carriers, U.S. airlines cannot rely on government subsidies to stay afloat. They need to create a business model that maximizes profit. This results in policies like overbooking, charging for snack boxes, and making you pay to check a bag. Yes, it is annoying, but it is the reality we live in.
Social media is a powerful tool. It connects us and allows pretty much anyone to write anything they want at any time. The problem is that people are now treating this tool as if it is legitimate journalism. While more legitimate news sites such as the BBC or New York Times detailed how a young passenger was denied boarding due to the dress-code policies set out for staff and their dependents, other "news" sites missed this key detail and instead made it seem that certain attire was not allowed for any passenger. It's like showing the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware and saying, "President does not understand proper boat safety!" Sure I guess it's one way of looking at it, but it kind of misses the whole point. So next time you take to the twitter or the facebook, ask yourself, "Do I have all the facts . . . or am I just a slave to what's trending?" Treat everything you read on social media as if Donald Trump said it. Sure maybe it's got some pretty bold and sensational claims, but there's probably evidence out there pointing to the exact opposite. And before you type something yourself on social media, think, "I heard this little soundbite on the internet and it got me riled up, therefore it must be true! . . . wait, am I any better than Trump?" Food for thought. Do your research, kids. Mahalo.
