Flying the Friendly Skies

Flying the Friendly Skies

What happened to first class air travel?  Back in the day, all air travel was a luxury When someone took a plane somewhere, it was a big deal.  Everyone got dressed up.  Even Orville and Wilbur Wright wore coat and ties when flying.  Back before enclosed gang ways, the airlines literally had a red carpet on the concrete tarmac leading from the gate to the stairs leading up to the plane’s door.  But, in the 1980’s the airline industry was de-regulated.  The airlines started chopping prices as the competition heated up.  Flying became a commodity that almost anyone could afford.  The low prices packed the planes but the seat prices plummeted.  The airlines wanted to preserve some high priced seats, so they made Coach seating as miserable as possible, and First Class as luxurious as possible.

Coach seating is really bad.  The airlines must have hired a sadist as a consultant on how to torture the unfortunates who travel in the Coach section.  The airlines like to refer to it as Economy Class, but their underlying tone is this is the cheap bastards section.  And we’ll make you wish you were not such a tightwad.

I cannot condemn the aircraft manufacturers for the seat spacing or the comfort of the seats.  It is the airlines that order the planes the way they want them fitted out.  I happen to fly United Airlines most often.  United typically flies Boeing planes made in America.  The newest planes are always touted as being the best.  But for my money, the Boeing 747, which has been around since the 1970s has much better seating than the new 777.  I hate the seats in the 777.  The head rest is too prominent and the seat is curved to make you sit too far forward for normal comfort.  During takeoff and landing, when the chair must be upright, it is like sitting in the curve of an eggshell.  It is very uncomfortable for my neck.  Considering the fact that I am tall, dark and handsome, except for the dark and handsome part, the chair may not designed for someone of my height.  And the seat cushion is really hard.  My ass cheeks go numb from sitting in that seat.

In coach, I literally cannot move my knees because they are jammed into the seat ahead of me.  And if that patron tilts his seat back on to me, it is torture.  I am very conscious of not leaning my chair back more than one position when I am flying.  I feel it is not fair to the poor smuck who is behind me.  On one recent flight, I was very careful to not tilt back, even though my head kept bobbing forward if I nodded off.  After a couple of hours into the flight, I HAD to tilt my chair further back. It was then I noticed that there was not even anyone sitting behind me.  Do’h!  I could have been stretched out all that time. 

Back when fuel prices were skyrocketing, the costs to operate aircraft really caused the industry to suffer. Several airlines either went bankrupt or merged with other carriers.  The remaining airlines would do whatever they could to lure passengers from Economy into the Premium seats of the plane.  Even so, First Class has all but disappeared from many airlines.  They got so few passengers in that section they had to reconfigure the seats, since so many were empty.  

It seems the airlines have done a lot more recently to encourage passengers to pay for Premium seats.  They offer much better food, and they serve it on real china plates, with cloth napkins and metal silverware.   The airlines ply their first class customers wine beer and liquor.   They’ll have magazines, soft lighting and lovely little zipped gift bags for every chair.  The gift bag will have a tooth brush, ear plugs, and even a blindfold.  The airlines get more creative all the time.  One trip, as I was straining to see into First Class from my pitiful coach seat, and saw a flight attendant kneeing on the floor in front of a patron.  Her head was bobbing up and down.  I could not believe what I was seeing. 

I had to check this out, so I slipped in past the privacy curtain that separates first class from scum class, past the laser beam security and past Guido, the bouncer, to get a closer look at the flight attendant’s sordid act.  Yes, just as I suspected.  The flight attendant was kneeling in front of the rich fat cat First Class patron, shining his shoes.  I was shocked.  I never thought I’d see that.  Wow, the airlines really will do anything to make First Class customers happy.  

I did get lucky once and got upgraded from coach to business class on one trip.  There was so much room between seats that I could not even touch the chair ahead of me when I was sitting down.  It does not seem fair that the expensive seats get too much room and the cheap seats don’t have enough.  Some flights even offer sleeping pods in First Class.  That just seems weird.  Too much like the movie 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  I’d be afraid the onboard computer would kill me in flight. 

I wish I could convince the management of my company that I was worth getting to fly first class.  Those flights are long, and dreary.  Maybe if I gave United a good review here in my blog, I could get some of that first class treatment.  I could use a little spit polish on my old loafers too, if you know what I mean. That would put new meaning into flying the friendly skies.