I worked with a guy who had spent over a decade working in guest relations at the airport for an airline. Working the check-in desk, the gate, the guest lounge, luggage, etc. He got an opportunity during the pandemic, when air travel went to almost nothing, to move to an office in corporate HQ and work with programmers as a domain expert and guide, and jump at it. He knew stuff that wasn't written down anywhere but was key to the passenger experience.
He told me he'd quit before going to back to work with passengers at the airport. It was that bad.
They may be racing to the bottom but you don't have to.
I pay the EXACT SAME for airfare that I did in the 90s and 2000s, adjusted for inflation.
The standard of service and amenities are better.
You can fly, today, right now, from NYC to Paris in a gigantic lie-flat seat with a widescreen entertainment device, goodie bag, hot towels throughout the flight, food that's actually decent, and personal electrical sockets right next to your elbow for less than what a turbo-economy non-reclining middle seat in the aft-most bulkhead row next to the lavatories would have cost in the late-90s/early-2000s.
But most people select "price: lowest to highest" and click on the lowest number regardless of how bad that option is (connections, flight time, product quality, rewards, fees) and then get angry when corners are cut. It's like buying a chromebook and getting mad when it can't run Solidworks.
> But most people select "price: lowest to highest" and click on the lowest number regardless of how bad that option is
That the quality of the premium service is unchanged may say little about the how the experience has changed in the lower tiers. The issue in those service tiers may not be in comparison to the first class experience but in comparison to previous years’ experience.
That said, though I rarely fly, and when I do it’s never in some rarefied class of service, I don’t perceive much difference. The security theatre is the most notable change; but that’s hardly the fault of the airlines. The opacity and complexity of the rewards programs is an irritation; but I suppose it’s my own indulgence that I just ignore all that.
Meh… I’m not an expert in airline economics but it often seems the case that if you are not a barebones low cost charging for everything excess toilet access and a seat, you may not be able to get enough occupancy to pay airport fees, maintenance, baggage, fuel, crew, and the rest of the operating costs, otherwise that bird is taking off and bleed dollars. Then you are a national carrier, and you must be subsidized by the government.
Airlines are lying, bait-and-switching pieces of shit and the flying experience gets worse every year, so the only thing that's surprising is that there aren't way more of these incidents
They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees. They're just in the same boat as we are.
And with airlines like Ryanair, when you want something just pay for it. Seat selection, carryon etc. It's still cheaper than a traditional airline. When you follow their rules you won't have issues.
>They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees.
It's not rational, but humans aren't rational. And sadly if somebody is angry and the culprit isn't present, they will be angry at the nearest human they deem at least slightly responsible. In this case the airline employees.
It's not unreasonable to expect that the human agents of the airline have power to affect the behavior of the airline. Today's employees are also victims of the same spreadsheet-minmaxxed policy-computer-mediated-system as the passengers, but this doesn't actually erase that fundamental dynamic. It just makes for the age old setup where capital puts humans in a captive zero-sum situation to fight it out amongst themselves while it pulls the strings to invisibly extract the most value.
The amount of people (willfully?) trying to haggle with Ryanair is probably the most detrimental to their experience. My latest flight about 40% (yes, I’m counting) of the waits were for people discussing non-booked preferences (suitcases, seats, priority). They should accept any customer wish (except seating) and charge afterwards. That would be great. “Oh here we see you had a overhead and stood in the priority lane. That’ll be € 400 extra.”
Off course their pricing is obnoxious, intransparant and pretty much in opposite of good customer service, but that is their good right. They fly safe, on time and have the best network.
One thing I am guilty of is trying to get an extra legroom seat for free.
I’m 6ft5 and feel like my choice is between being forced to pay for something which I cannot help or be placed in a seat which is so small I end up damaging body.
However, this is usually something which takes up a few seconds of me just asking and moving on if they can’t.
While I have no data and this is just logical assessment I’d bet a lot of reason for the increase in these incidents is the way in which airlines have drastically increased fares and lowered services since the pandemic.
Since the pandemic airfares have doubled across the board and, with that, things like a complimentary checkin bag on an 8 hour flight have been removed.
Atop of that other complimentary things such as alcoholic drinks and meals have also been removed from many airlines. All the while operators have been implementing algorithms which force you to pay to sit next to the person with whom you are travelling.
It’s not an excuse for people to start abusing staff as that is unacceptable no matter the reasoning. Just trying to add some perspective
I feel for you (6ft2 myself and I fit exactly) and other customer irritations as well.
When I first flew thirty years ago (getting older here) it was half a monthly average paycheck for one kid Amsterdam - US. I remember, since I had to do chores and save my allowance for half the ticket. Currently I fly five pax Amsterdam - Spain on a holiday for not even a third of an average paycheck. People got richer and flying got massively more efficient. We are just undergoing the pains of how to treat flying like trains or buses where the individual passenger is not the primary customer.
(This is only relatable for people in places with working mass transit. Obviously you are the customer, but the timetable and procedures couldn’t care. It’s the bureaucratic approach to business. The free drinks and suitcases in legacy flying are another model, that incidentally failed on shorter flights.)
The thing is that I think rage Billing Afterwards is better than the current practice of extra billing before you go which leads to haggling and queueing for the rest of us.
It's not unclear, all the options are offered during the booking process. In fact they are crystal clear and you have to choose "nope" several times to get past it, they really want to sell their addons :)
But then going to the plane and demanding the things you wouldn't pay for is just disingenious IMO. And rude to the other passengers who did.
> They should accept any customer wish (except seating) and charge afterwards. That would be great. “Oh here we see you had a overhead and stood in the priority lane. That’ll be € 400 extra.”
That's kinda what they do actually. They charge if you insist on bringing your carryon. However this is what causes the arguments because people don't want to pay.
I don't really get it. They want to fly to Barcelona for 29 euro but the 9 euro for priority + carryon is too much :/ If you fly KLM you get this for free but you will be paying more than 100. Just pay for the extras and you're still way cheaper off.
What I also like about Ryanair is that you can just choose if/what you want to eat on board. At KLM they will give you usually a cheese sandwich which I can't eat (lactose) and only a tiny cup of drink. With Ryanair you can just buy what you want for a price that's similar to a big city coffeeshop on the ground.
I tend to avoid the legacy airlines for this reason.
People always say this, but I haven't seen any evidence that it's true. In my view, the flying experience at least in the US has actually gotten better over the last few years. United, for example, added free seatback IFEs. (About 10 or so years ago, you had to swipe a credit card to watch anything.)
I don't know how long you've been flying or what airlines you use, but the situation was very different pre-9/11. 2 checked bags and seat selections were free, you could walk/pick up family at the gate, and onerous security checkpoints weren't a thing. More importantly, seats had more room.
Sure, you had to read skymall instead of watching a movie during the flight, but tablets didn't exist yet so we didn't know better.
Qualitatively the situation is worse today, even if the difference is usually exaggerated.
It got worse after the shoe bomber and then worse again when the airports found out they could make more money selling water after security by only having ‘convenience’ warm water in the toilets.
This is not just post 9/11. Airlines have been cramming more seats onto planes[1], the quality of the seats has been going down. There didn’t used to be a single airline that had no-recline seats, now there are many. Charging for carry on or forgoing drink service to save money also wasn’t a thing until a few years ago, now it’s everywhere.
Airlines are pushing people as far as they can in order to maximize cash extraction. It’s no surprise more people are snapping.
None of them, but I don’t think those are being offered as justifications for violence, but to help explain the rise in prevalence. If you cram more and more people into smaller and smaller spaces, opportunities for conflict are going to increase.
Personally, though, I think it’s more a matter of air travel becoming more accessible. Air traffic doubled in the last two decades. There used to be a lot fewer people flying because there weren’t as many routes and low cost options.
True. And add to that a massive dose of unchecked entitlement and endemic main character syndrome on the part of the passengers and you get this explosive coctail.
A drink is what helps many people tolerate the din and chaos. Let those that act out be judfed on thir own. Booze is not an excuse or a primary driver of these incidents.
Flying is a truly horrible experience. All the victim-blaming in the world won’t help either.
I say: time to cut federal spending on keeping airlines in business. If United, et. al., can’t cut it as a business… so be it.
Maybe, if we let The Market steer for a while these issues will resolve.
There is a solution. Create a cross-airline list and ban them for one year on the first offense, three years on the second and then it’s a lifetime ban. Ban alcohol on flights and if someone is caught bringing alcohol on flights they get a ban too.
If people are that dependent on a drug to regulate their behavior maybe people should look into that. I mean, Jesus, it’s a max four hour plane ride in the US.
flying is a horrible horrible experience. the seats are too small, the legroom too short, the speakers too loud, the reliability too low. and it gets worse every year. nobody in coach buys a ticket to fly thinking it might go okay anymore. they know it will be terrible. but there's no alternative. where i live there's one airline. even when there's choice, there's very little choice. i don't use any of this to be rageful towards anyone else. but it's a predictable outcome from this ever increasing pressure. and i didn't even get into how bad US airports are, how unhappy passengers are before they even get on the plane.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 89.5 ms ] threadHe told me he'd quit before going to back to work with passengers at the airport. It was that bad.
I pay the EXACT SAME for airfare that I did in the 90s and 2000s, adjusted for inflation.
The standard of service and amenities are better.
You can fly, today, right now, from NYC to Paris in a gigantic lie-flat seat with a widescreen entertainment device, goodie bag, hot towels throughout the flight, food that's actually decent, and personal electrical sockets right next to your elbow for less than what a turbo-economy non-reclining middle seat in the aft-most bulkhead row next to the lavatories would have cost in the late-90s/early-2000s.
But most people select "price: lowest to highest" and click on the lowest number regardless of how bad that option is (connections, flight time, product quality, rewards, fees) and then get angry when corners are cut. It's like buying a chromebook and getting mad when it can't run Solidworks.
That the quality of the premium service is unchanged may say little about the how the experience has changed in the lower tiers. The issue in those service tiers may not be in comparison to the first class experience but in comparison to previous years’ experience.
That said, though I rarely fly, and when I do it’s never in some rarefied class of service, I don’t perceive much difference. The security theatre is the most notable change; but that’s hardly the fault of the airlines. The opacity and complexity of the rewards programs is an irritation; but I suppose it’s my own indulgence that I just ignore all that.
https://thehill.com/business/4268539-calculated-misery-heres...
And with airlines like Ryanair, when you want something just pay for it. Seat selection, carryon etc. It's still cheaper than a traditional airline. When you follow their rules you won't have issues.
It's not rational, but humans aren't rational. And sadly if somebody is angry and the culprit isn't present, they will be angry at the nearest human they deem at least slightly responsible. In this case the airline employees.
Off course their pricing is obnoxious, intransparant and pretty much in opposite of good customer service, but that is their good right. They fly safe, on time and have the best network.
I’m 6ft5 and feel like my choice is between being forced to pay for something which I cannot help or be placed in a seat which is so small I end up damaging body.
However, this is usually something which takes up a few seconds of me just asking and moving on if they can’t.
While I have no data and this is just logical assessment I’d bet a lot of reason for the increase in these incidents is the way in which airlines have drastically increased fares and lowered services since the pandemic.
Since the pandemic airfares have doubled across the board and, with that, things like a complimentary checkin bag on an 8 hour flight have been removed.
Atop of that other complimentary things such as alcoholic drinks and meals have also been removed from many airlines. All the while operators have been implementing algorithms which force you to pay to sit next to the person with whom you are travelling.
It’s not an excuse for people to start abusing staff as that is unacceptable no matter the reasoning. Just trying to add some perspective
When I first flew thirty years ago (getting older here) it was half a monthly average paycheck for one kid Amsterdam - US. I remember, since I had to do chores and save my allowance for half the ticket. Currently I fly five pax Amsterdam - Spain on a holiday for not even a third of an average paycheck. People got richer and flying got massively more efficient. We are just undergoing the pains of how to treat flying like trains or buses where the individual passenger is not the primary customer.
(This is only relatable for people in places with working mass transit. Obviously you are the customer, but the timetable and procedures couldn’t care. It’s the bureaucratic approach to business. The free drinks and suitcases in legacy flying are another model, that incidentally failed on shorter flights.)
Sounds like that would cause more rage.
But then going to the plane and demanding the things you wouldn't pay for is just disingenious IMO. And rude to the other passengers who did.
That's kinda what they do actually. They charge if you insist on bringing your carryon. However this is what causes the arguments because people don't want to pay.
I don't really get it. They want to fly to Barcelona for 29 euro but the 9 euro for priority + carryon is too much :/ If you fly KLM you get this for free but you will be paying more than 100. Just pay for the extras and you're still way cheaper off.
What I also like about Ryanair is that you can just choose if/what you want to eat on board. At KLM they will give you usually a cheese sandwich which I can't eat (lactose) and only a tiny cup of drink. With Ryanair you can just buy what you want for a price that's similar to a big city coffeeshop on the ground.
I tend to avoid the legacy airlines for this reason.
People always say this, but I haven't seen any evidence that it's true. In my view, the flying experience at least in the US has actually gotten better over the last few years. United, for example, added free seatback IFEs. (About 10 or so years ago, you had to swipe a credit card to watch anything.)
Sure, you had to read skymall instead of watching a movie during the flight, but tablets didn't exist yet so we didn't know better.
Qualitatively the situation is worse today, even if the difference is usually exaggerated.
The nickel-and-diming continues.
Airlines are pushing people as far as they can in order to maximize cash extraction. It’s no surprise more people are snapping.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-11/airlines-h...
Personally, though, I think it’s more a matter of air travel becoming more accessible. Air traffic doubled in the last two decades. There used to be a lot fewer people flying because there weren’t as many routes and low cost options.
https://www.southwest.com/rapid-rewards/program-updates/
Is it post-COVID biology? People permanently unsettled by the GFC? Rising temperatures?
I say: time to cut federal spending on keeping airlines in business. If United, et. al., can’t cut it as a business… so be it. Maybe, if we let The Market steer for a while these issues will resolve.