I’m trying to imagine what cranial crisis would have to occur for me fork over seven dollars to rent an airline pillow. I’m stumped. Pillows on planes aren’t like bowling shoes - you don't need then to get in the game. How did this idea start? Overwhelming demand? Have thousands of new pillows been put into service?

Until now, pillows on planes were like quasars, we know they exist, but nobody’s actually seen one. Pillows on planes are like great parking spaces, or Carlos Santana suddenly stepping in with the bar band at the joint you dropped in for a quick one after work - things that happen to other people, but never you. Pillows are the golden Easter egg in the overhead.

As I was imagining this surreal conversation, by which I hand over a twenty and patiently wait for change, because stews never have change, I put myself in the stew’s place. Selling drool crusted mini-pads. Five years of high school for this? Now I’m a tough guy, I can, and have, slept naked in cast iron bathtubs, dozed on plastic bus stop benches, and in cases of rain, napped in phone booths; so, I can get along without that used Delta wash rag, salvaged from first class, stuffed with left-over foam peanuts from the cargo hold.

But how does the conversation go with the 102 year lady with the crepe paper face and bones sticking out like broken branches through her lime green sweater vest. “No I’m sorry mam. If you need a pillow to keep your arthritic neck stable, so your cervical joints don’t crumble like Bleu cheese if we hit turbulence, I’m afraid that will be seven dollars. No mam, no exceptions. How about a Fresca? That’s only two bucks!”

These are strange and desperate times the airlines tell us; no kidding! It’s hard to imagine there was time comedians made a career joking about the perceived nuttiness of the industry. And that was back in the good ole days, before strip searches and bag lunches. It’s nuttier now I suppose, just not as funny anymore.

I understand they need the cash flow and I really don’t mind some of the charges. No, I don’t. Most people think eight bucks for a cocktail is outrageous, but I’ve paid that much many places. So have a lot of folks. The issue is …usually at that price, a girl named Honey Bun is naked on my lap, sucking on my ear, and whispering about VIP room afternoon discounts.

Of course, I don’t expect that level of service in coach, but eight bucks for a plastic cup and mini-bar bottle of cheap hooch, I’m thinking a little chit chat, and a partial Bunny Dip is not out of order. At the very least, the airlines could re-implement the height/weight guidelines, and maybe a uniform re-evaluation. The value of any adult beverage improves with the scenery. These guys are suppose to be value conscious.

(A quick note on in flight beer. Just freaking stop! In thirty years of flying and beer drinking I have never, ever, had a cold one on a flight. That rack of beer just takes up room for the three card Monte game I’m sure is on the additional revenues blackboard back at corporate marketing.)

When it comes right down to it, these guys just don’t get it. They tell us they can’t raise fare prices because even a few dollars more, and the consumer will switch airlines. (collective pause, inhale…) Well…NO SHIT!

When the only difference between the four biggest airlines is, that the best one only looses your bag some of the time, rather that most of the time, the selection process is pretty straight forward. Search price online, hit send. A process at least as satisfying as encountering an airline employee these days. Usually more so.

Prices go up, first law of the competitive jungle. But the airlines are in a box, crouched in the corner, pissing themselves like a terrorized Chihuahua. The best they can think to do, is man handle what’s left of their beleaguered staff and set them up like barkers in the midway selling trinkets to the tourists. So why can’t these coporate monkey’s jump up to baboon pricing?

Could it be that the major airlines have spent the last twenty years torturing their customers like inmates at Buchenwald? We expect nothing from them, we are willing to pay even less. Our only expectations are that; at the check-in desk, we’ll be harassed for ‘our papers’ like panicky refugees on a heli-pad in line for the last flight out of Saigon, a savage crunch as our luggage is shot-putted onto the bag cart, and an impromptu prayer circle at the boarding gate where we plead to the gods that we won’t spend more than two hours holding our pee out on the tarmac.

If our flight does manage to get airborne, we spend the next few hours cramped like Copperfield in a magic box trick, chewing our knees, to be helplessly assaulted by carnival hucksters in crew uniforms. From his grave, PT Barnum is sorry he missed this animal show. They can’t even figure out how to swing us a couple of bags of peanuts. On my last flight, I advanced the idea of continuing to give out free peanuts, but to cut costs, they could pour them out into our hands from giant Costco bags.

When it comes to better mousetraps, big American corporations are sleeping with the fishes. The airlines are leading the way. The last American innovation that still has competitive traction is Spam.

100 years of car building and marketing and General Motors couldn’t figure out price was irrelevant - people didn’t buy their cars because they built crap. And even when they tried to do better, people stayed away because they were perceived as crap. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, sell cars literally as fast as they can make them. And I don’t see too many 0% financing or rebates from those guys.

United Airlines thinks 50$ baggage fees and seven dollar pillows are the only way they can compete in the market place. Not surprising - these are the same guys that didn’t notice that 19 angry looking Arabs with weapons were acting a little fishy. So when they put their heads together, charging old ladies for pillows we shouldn’t be surprised.

Obviously they need things spelled out. They're are still at the chalkboard debating potato(e) with Dan Quale. So I’ll speak slowly.

An experience with your airline makes lunchtime at the Gulag look like a Happy Meal. It’s not the price we object to - it’s your operation.

Stop loosing people’s bags; and stop packaging your customers like veal in flying feeding pens. Throw a few free news papers around the boarding gates and put out some bottled water during delays. Answer the damn customer service phone - for free. Give your employees a little respect so they can give us some...and a couple of fresh uniforms, and steam clean those freaking’, gagging, nasty seats in coach. In general, make the choice between flying and gum disease less of a toss up.

The majority of flyers would have no problem adding a $100 or even more to the price of a ticket if airlines would stop the bull shit. Get in the game. We make big girl and boy money decisions all the time. Run your company like a business, not some governmental low income housing program. People want to give you an extra $100... at lot more that the deal they’ve got right now.

Most flyer’s have enough budget to pay for something worth buying. What we can’t afford, is the Bambi Meets Godzilla mosh pit that you call American air travel.

z

I have five herniated disks: two in my neck, three in my lower back. I bring two pillows with me, which I have named: the Defiant and the Screw YOU AA (its full name involves a more explicit description of my ill intent which I will avoid repeating because I am a lady). My physical therapist, who is also a licensed chiropractor, says the airlines design their seating to keep him in business.

Nicely written, btw and fyi, you can easily get the good service you're fantasizing about, if you want it. It's called first class; the upgrade can cost you as little as $50, the booze is free and liberally applied, and you get a somewhat realistic meal, and a cloth napkin with real silverware (the knife will be plastic though, as if you couldn't hijack a plane with a half- broken highball glass if you have any people skills at all). No pillows and no bunny hop, though. Bring your own.

I'd hold the pillow ransom until they cough up my missing luggage.

How do airlines get away with the crap they pull? Any other business that conducted business like the airlines do would be out of business real quick.

Here's one for you to remember: airlines are under no obligation to fufill their side of the bargin. That is, if the plane is late or cancelled you have no recourse in practical terms. They don't have to give to your money back.

All they have to do is, at some point, give you the choice to take a later flight.

That's like saying. if you have movie tickets and they cancel the movie, they only give you another ticket. What if you are leaving town? You bought tickets for that movie specifically.

Tough luck.

z

...if the government weren't propping them up.

Good article.

My own experience is slightly more positive, meaning that I don't find the experience to be all that terrible, but it certainly is no treat, either.

Most of my recent flights have been on either SouthWest or Delta -- not crazy about the SW seating procedure, but so long as I can check in on-line and get in the A group (or even the B group), I am OK with it.

It actually seems like at least for these airlines, they may have improved legroom slightly, or maybe my legs are shrinking in my old age, but I am just fine with the legroom, so long as I can put my bigger carryon in the overhead bin.

Most of my flights are about 2 hours in duration, and thus, I can get along just fine with no food, and I rarely feel the inclination to buy a drink on board.

I rarely check bags, but when I have done so, the track record of lost bags has not been good -- which is why I so seldom do so. When I have had to do so, I have learned to pack a clean pair of undershorts and a toiletry bag in my carryon, and to fly wearing clothes that I could wear again to my business appointment the next day if needed.

It seems to me that one of the issues driving prices to the lowest common denominator has been corporate travel policies. Many companies have gone to requiring that all travel be booked through them, and they are going for low cost at the expense of convenience (whether scheduling or quality of service of the airline involved) and the airlines have responded accordingly.

On the other hand, I wouldn't personally pay an extra $50 of my own money to have better seats and real food for a flight, unless it was to Europe, or maybe Hawaii. I'm just too cheap. I'd much rather spend the $50 on a good dinner once I reach my destination.

It's a public health issue. the airlines were often continuously being lax in not properly discarding used disposable pillows and customers were often picking up ones left and used previously by someone else..that and/or the airline personell was continously lax in discarding old used pillows and inadvertently from lack of attention..allowing new customers to use them.

With the rise of TB and other easily contracted diseases today, it has become a public health concern in how to best insure the lax oversight on the use of airline pillows does not continue to be a possible source of the passage of communcable disease and infections particularly URI's(upper respiratory infections).

By encouraging customers to either bring their pillow or charge them for a pillow they are killing several birds with one stone..they not only cut down on the frequent occurance of the mis handling of used pillows but also help to offset the other rising costs of airline travel.

...with real downy pillows .

After all the vitriol I shouldn't admit that for all it's faults. air travel itself is still an amazing bargain.

I do the same thing as everyone when I shop airlines, get the lowest price as close to the time I can accept. But you know, I would have no problem payin a little more, I'm saying an extra 75$ on a $250 ticket, if I knew the experience could be something to enjoy rather than survive.

We don't bat an eye at 75$'s for a friday night dinner that lasts maybe two hours, why when we're taveling should we not be willing to pay for a little comfort and service.

The airlines think all they can do is this stripped down GreyHound of the skies act.

I'm not that old,but I remember when flying was actually fun. The stewardess's joked around, the drinks were reasonable, the seats were comfortable....the gate staff were glad to see you.

But the main thing, if you had a problem with a flight, they took care of it pronto. I was transferred many times to another carrier if I was in danger of missing a connection.It was not a question.

Now, they hem and haw and make you jump through hoops. They never explain delays, or problems, like its a national secret. It's a damn airlplane fer cripes sake!

My point is, because I've traveled a good bit of third world, I see the same sort of manana attitudes seeping into our transportation system, the same kind of breakdowns. If we continue on this trajectory, in ten years, well....

z

Gosh, I wonder how old that drawing is? i remember seeing that in the sixties. I know It's older than smiley faces.

That logo is old enough that a quick Google couldn't find it.

I finally pillowed it on ebay poster sales.

I'd give up any number of anachronistic trinkets (I mean, the "food" is not missed, by god, although I admit I'm glad they'll still distract me with a coke and some pretzels), for capable flight scheduling that arrives more or less reliably and on time, and maybe a couple more inches of leg room. To save my poor knees, I vote to abolish first class, and distribute the extra real estate to make room for laptop-typing elbows and the spreading American bum.

Come to think of it, this is basically the discount model, so okay.

If other passengers want to subsidize my flying by buying a gimmick or two, I guess that's okay. Maybe they should make parts of the security screening optional too. Maybe make some willing passengers pay extra for the assurance of a nail clipper- and toothpaste-free flight.

I agree with you on the food, I can only think of a couple times it was ever anything more than an annoyance. But the soda service I liked.

Without it, it seems to reduce things to an evil plateau. I don't give a damn about anybody in a blue uniform, because the only reason they are there is to harass my about my seat belt. Beyond that, they no longer have function.

z

I would have to think about what they might change that would make me willing to pay another $50-$75 per flight.

I don't think better food and drink on flight would do it -- whatever they could do would not be worth that much money (now, if I am flying to Europe, that is another matter) -- but unless you are in business class or first class on a trans-Atlantic flight, your dining experience is gonna suck no matter what the food budget -- I opt for the packet of cheeze crackers or peanuts and a real meal on the ground, either before or after the flight.

A little better seating would possibly be worth it -- for me, more hip room would matter more than more legroom. I all too often end up seated next to someone whose fat overflows well into my personal space. Maybe making those over a certain weight buy two seats would be a good idea! Or require then to buy first class tickets.

Getting rid of screaming kids used to be my pet peeve, but somehow that has not been the issue in recent years so much as in the past. I used to fly from the midwest to SLC a couple of times every month and I swear half the seats would be filled with young Mormon mothers traveling with 3 kids under the age of 5, all of which were either screaming because the pressure change hurt their ears, or spent the flight running up and down the isles, climbing over my lap to get to and from their seats, or kicking my seatback from behind. I love kids and I always felt sorry for the mothers, but damn, that makes a long fucking flight!

My biggest annoyances have less to do with the flights themselves and more with the airport facilities -- starting with the security check. I usually fly out of SeaTac and franky, it usually is not all that bad -- the lines move fairly quickly and the staff are fairly friendly and helpful. But in many airports, I see they have only about half the screening lanes open, even when there are long lines of travelers. I would be willing to pay a bit extra to have these better staffed to cut down those lines.

Secondly, accomodations once through security are often crap. Again, SeaTac is better -- I actually enjoy my time waiting for my flights. They have good bookstores, some shops that sell more than schnock, decent dining choices, and usually enough seating near the gate. But in many airports, the food is shit, it is hard to find a seat anywhere near your gate unless you are there way early, and the experience is generally unpleasant.

the time I saw a fellow passenger blowing his nose on one of those pillows. Never had much use for them, even less after seeing that...