Bump This!

The recent unpleasantness over the forced removal of a paying customer from an overbooked United Airlines flight 3411Chicago to Louisville was necessary and predictable. Necessary because United had aggressively sold and then maliciously packed people like sardines into each and every available seat aboard the plane, and predictable because brutish corporate policy these days dictates maximizing profit on each and every phase of the commercial airline flying experience at the expense of those who naively believed that “Flying The Friendly,” was a good way to go.  When United Airlines geniuses realized at the last minute that they would have to free up four seats to get a crew to Louisville pronto, it fell upon the sheeple already buckled in to their 17″ seats to gaze warily at the increasingly hostile crew looking to notch a few easy bumps (at the lowest possible cost to UAL). Three conscientious objectors gave up for a song and a tiny voucher. But Dr. David Dao had other ideas.   He apparently believed that a paid ticket, valid seat assignment, serious and pressing reasons to get underway, and a buckled up seat belt would lift him safely to Louisville.

       Wrong, he should have known that United Airlines has the highest rate of passengers who were involuntarily denied boarding over the past eight years. Delta has the lowest rate and this week announced a greatly increased bounty for those who give up their seats under pressure from overwrought gate personnel. When a squad of burly security officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation (NOT police even though their jackets said so) muscled aboard and squeezed down the aisle to find the 69-year old doctor, he stoutly refused to budge. There were angry words. Rising voices. Hyperventilation. White knuckles. Oxygen masks ready to drop but nobody backed down. So the only thing left was to drag the stubborn doctor out of his sardine seat and down the aisle: Three gorillas, one 69-year old Vietnam émigré whose flight from Saigon in 1975 was do doubt calmer than this one, shouts and screams and outrage from all who watched.

And it was an outrage. Even though UAL CEO Oscar Munoz initially called the incident a “re-accomodation,” and said Dr. Dao had been “disruptive and belligerent,” the next day he had the opportunity to refine his apology. A few million more hits on YouTube induced Munoz to apologize again, really meaning it this time. By the end of the week, a few zillion more hits on YouTube and a few million dollars shaved off United stock, Munoz made yet another apology that almost sounded genuine.

But it’s not enough. The flying public is weary of being regarded by nearly everyone in the industry as the enemy. Consider the indignities grandma faces just to fly from Fresno to Ft. Worth to visit the grandkids: 1. A fare and flight schedule that is inscrutable on the best of days, 2. Internet travel booking aggregators that increase confusion by a factor of ten, 3. Baggage and carry-on restrictions more draconian by the hour, 4. Gotcha fees for unimaginable trivialities, 5. The grossly unacceptable antics of T.S.A. agents who have been given license to aggressively palpitate every crotch they desire, 6. The grossly unacceptable antics of airport gate clerks and security officers who are given license to drag paying customers from their 17″ seats, 7. Food and snacks that suck, when available.

Perhaps Congress will have something to say about all of this. Maybe not re-regulation, but certainly some new rights for travelers and a scolding for corporate management that is rude, arrogant, and seemingly unfazed by the true hardships many travelers face and the unnecessary anxiety that it induces. One thought—a self-locking seat belt, if a passenger manages to get all the way to their assigned seat they get to lock themselves in. No one can prevent a bumpy ride in the air, but no one should endure a bumpy ride on the ground, either.