Convenience is the word. Convenience to get on the plane in no time; convenience to check in bags at the curbside; convenience to carry on my new refrigerator and stuff it in the overhead bin; convenience to pay $2.50 for a folding chair seat on a flight to Las Vegas (thank you SouthWest, because of you flying will literally never be the same); convenience because the security people don’t speak English anyway, so what are they going to do?
Airlines basically beg to get control over all aspects of moving passengers from the parking lot to the plane, including security. The government, on a privatization rampage, gives everything to the wise airlines because remember, they know how to MOVE people.
Since customers are king (what you didn’t know that?) and our airlines know exactly what I value the most: my life? No, they know what I value most is the maximum number of flights in one day with one plane without even having enough time to have a cleaning crew come in after each flight to clean up. Flight attendance were not even the waiters/waitresses in the sky anymore, they were the janitors in the sky. BTW, company policy is that they have to clean up after each flight but are not allowed to use gloves to clean up the snot your seat neighbor left on his seat. The rubber gloves would mess up the cheap Marsha look of the seventies uniform. Also, they are not allowed to use plastic bags to put the trash in so they use the plastic bins which they put ice cubes in during the flight, YUM!
Airlines make a mistake because they forgot that king customer does value life over getting a cheap seat and having to stand in a puddle of piss when you try to wash your hands of the tasty cement sauce that was poured over your unrecognizable food. 7000 people die.
Our government in its infinite wisdom comes up with a $15 billion bail out package (yes, you read it correctly, $15 billion, $5 billion in cash to say thank you for having treated your customer like shit and $10 billion in loans that they may or may not have to pay back). To keep these truly brilliant and customer oriented, legalized, rentable torture chambers in the air.
Our government argues: Airlines and security is part of the countries infrastructure and as such deserves attention and regulation by the government. Ah, I thought that was exactly what the opponents said when privatization of airlines, airport security, electricity, etc. was going on in the first place? The same people that were preaching the Hosanna of privatization will argue now without flinching that our great national airlines deserver to be bailed out by subsidies.
What was that tax money earmarked for? Healthcare for the people that get hurt eating airline food or sitting Houdini style for 8 hours? Hey, why don’t we just transfer the $15 billion directly to the accounts of the shareholders?
I am so happy that my government takes care of me and that I know that I am king customer on every plane that I get on or that falls on me.
