Paving The Way For Increased Air Rage

American's New Third Word Class Service


Rant Alert!

In the past few weeks we've been deluged with images of harsh airline treatment directed at paying passengers. 

United sent in officers to "re-accommodate" a passenger (leaving him unconscious and minus teeth). Then there was the removal of the couple on their way to their wedding. On April 23 Delta threatened jail time when kicking off a family with 2 small children (each with a paid ticket) for not surrendering one of their children's seats on an overbooked flight from Maui. And finally an American flight attendant was videotaped assaulting a women.

Neat!

Southwest, whose staff routinely deals with awful passenger behavior with real diplomacy, somehow never has such incidents. The day after United's Dr. Dao debacle Southwest placed the now famous "we beat our competition, not our customers" ad. Pure marketing moxie.

So congress (purposely lower case), eager to distract from its rush to strip Americans of essential health care, held a public shaming of United's (pretty decent CEO) Oscar Muñoz. Yep, one ill-informed and awful tweet by Oscar landed him in front of congress. But Oscar knows congress has zero intention of actually fixing anything; its just another Roman spectacle.

So, while airlines enjoy record profits, and air rage escalates, American Airlines has cynically begun removing more legroom from coach. Seat spacing will match the planes operated by Spirit (truly America's worst airline). 

American's move is timed on the heels of Emirates announcement it will abandon its US expansion plans. Massive lobbying money spent by the big US carriers to bar Emirates (a truly great airline) from acquiring any US gates has paid off. 

More proof that US corporations find it easier / cheaper to use dark money to avoid competition, rather than improve a product.

Stay tuned for the unveiling of American's new "Third World" class.

And, as planes get more claustrophobic, we can expect customer rage to escalate.

Roadboy's Travels © 2017