Originally Posted by TightSlot
What I never understand is why airlines are expected to behave differently to other businesses with whom we all deal?
To be perfectly fair, air travel is still seen as an unusual purchase and an unusual travel experience for most people. You can see this from the amount of stress that infrequent passengers put themselves under when they fly. Even if they have paid a fare that's comparable to the train fare for their journey, the whole business of flying there puts it into a completely different psychological realm. Compare the reaction that you'd be likely to get from someone who boarded a train and found that had to sit in the next row from their partner, with the reaction if they boarded a flight to the same destination (taking about 25% of the time) and found the same thing.
Then there's all these strange procedures ... What's going to happen next? Where do I have to go? ... Am I going to die horribly in the next 30 minutes?
When they've got into that psychological frame of mind, and approach their journey with a mental "special" label attached to it, it's no surprise when they suddenly start demanding "special" treatment of one sort or another. Favours on x, y or z. Free upgrades. Extra baggage without charge. Etc., etc. I think that's why there's so many of these incessant demands that wouldn't be made of other businesses.