United States Department of Transportation head Sean Duffy came up with a plan to make airline travel better, dress better. That is the policy from a powerful government official whose job is to head over a massive transport infrastructure of the most powerful country in the world. This makes a person question the current leadership. Does wearing pyjamas for a flight trigger bad behaviour?
Since the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978 the industry has raced to the bottom pushing profit over employees and customers. No longer shackled by government regulation on fares and routes airlines could do what they want. In many ways it was the same as giving an 8-year-old keys to a candy shop. What followed, bankruptcies, strikes, bail outs, mergers, cities at the mercy of one airline.
As passenger demand increased air travel sacrificed service for a cattle car mentality. Cram as many on the plane as possible. Looking over the Skytrax list for top 10 Best Airlines, no American Carriers make the prestigious list. Repeatedly, the Asian and Middle Eastern airlines dominate the chart. Watching old airline commercials, once good service was front and center.
My last interaction with an American Airport happened in Philadelphia. The international airport was in a shocking state bordering on breakdown. Flying from Zurich’s immaculate terminal, the PIA had a 1973 developing country feel. Dirty, drabby, my first thought was perhaps the plane went through a time vortex over the Atlantic.
But back to Duffy, this neo liberal stance blames the customer not the market driven tactics of the corporate class is typical from a free market capitalist. It is no secret US air travel has fallen into a nightmare journey similar to a prison bus drive. Travelers now expect to be treated as a mere inconvenient afterthought. Going to an airport in the past, there was optimism, today, dread. Dressing up to take a cattle car with two wings. The math does not make sense.
Perhaps airlines spent more time developing a model around better flyer experience the aggressiveness would not be a problem. But given the past almost 50 years of the airline industry’s business model there is a better chance of growing human feathers, then flying south for the winter.
Let’s make a deal, we dress better for flying, the airlines treat us better while flying.