On the surface, readers of Aircomplane.com should be somewhat relieved to
hear that we appear to have some company in pushing the airlines to get their
delayed, overbooked, arrogant, selfish, irresponsible, mis-managed acts
together. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), specifically FAA
Administrator Marion C. Blakey announced this week that "Airline schedules
have got to stop being the fodder for late-night monologues. And if the
airlines don't address this voluntarily, don't be surprised when the government
steps in." Please, surprise US!
Here are some of the
related articles from ABCNews.go.com
and CNN.com.
As previously mentioned here in both commentary and the actual report
from the Department of Transportation, July 2007 showed the airline
industry’s worst on-time performance since 1995 – the year such data was first
tracked.
But, alas, we cannot get
too excited. First, Ms. Blakey made her announcement during her last official speech as head of the FAA and two, Air Transport
Association spokesman David Castelveter reportedly said "No carrier is
going to be willing to reduce its schedule unless we see that industry
addresses all of the causes of delay."
“ALL” of the causes of
delay? You mean the passengers? Sorry, you didn’t mention us…Those of us with
children, special needs, and who may only fly once or twice a year and not wise
to the ways of the cattle car mentality? (PUBLISHERS' NOTE: We get the
general need for the bovine-like conveyance of large groups of people,
but we don't appreciate being branded by the iron-hot stares of arrogant and
condescending fright attendants during what should be a customer service
interchange.) Hmmm….Can we make a list of "all of the causes of
delay," too? How about overbooking, aggressive adherence to impossible
but-we-guess-they-look-profitable on spreadsheets schedules and a lack of
overall responsibility to those whom you purport to serve as “customers.” OK,
send us a list, Mr. “spokesman” for the ATA. We’d like to see it, and we’ll
certainly publish it. And our readers will absolutely help complete it.
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