strake
26th Aug 2003, 17:48
Sorry to put such a long article here but, despite the apparent hatred of journalist's on PPrune, this article certainly reflects my feelings of air travel at the moment:
Airlines have had your money - now belt up and take off
By Jenny McCartney
(Filed: 24/08/2003)
Pity poor Mr and Mrs Belsham, who boarded a plane at Dalaman, Turkey, last week en route to Gatwick, London with their baby daughter Sophie, who was suffering from a mild bout of food poisoning: things could only get worse.
Once settled in their seats, with the "fasten seatbelt" sign illuminated, the Belshams needed to change Sophie's nappy. Mr Belsham asked the stewardess to dispose of it, but she refused, so he got up and put it in the bin himself. The stewardess alleged that he then shoved her as he returned to his seat, which Mr Belsham and the other passengers denied.
Two armed Turkish policemen were promptly summoned to bundle Mr Belsham off the flight, leaving a weeping Mrs Belsham - who was forbidden to get off the plane - to struggle home alone. The police released Mr Belsham without charge, but so far the only comment from Air Atlanta Europe has been a prim little remark to the effect that it has "a policy of zero tolerance of physical intimidation of our staff".
We are all familiar by now with the concept of air rage: the explosion of violent ill-feeling from aggrieved passengers. Yet much less has been said about the chippiness which has crept into the demeanour of many airline employees. Their manner suggests that passengers are, at best, wearisome pests. The philosophy might be summarised: Wouldn't The Air Industry Be Great If It Weren't For All The Passengers?
Everyone understands the need for an intensification of airport security, but airlines have used the horrors of September 11, 2001 as an excuse to inflict stagey over-reactions on the docile bulk of the travelling public.
Are you carrying a pair of eyebrow tweezers in your handbag? You're a danger to yourself and others: you obviously want to rush into the cockpit and subject the terrified pilot to a brow reshape. Do you raise your voice in an argument over lost luggage? You're patently a crazed loon and might be better off explaining your frustrations to the police.
It might be argued that truly dangerous passengers - the sort who actually try to crash planes - would be rather anxious not to get into a dispute about the size of their hand luggage before boarding the flight.
Yet, unfortunately for the ordinary passenger, the ostentatious emphasis on "security concerns" and "passenger safety" has come at exactly the same time as the rapid expansion of low-cost airlines such as Ryanair. Such airlines, renowned for their low prices, habitually slip up on the basics of customer care. When passengers become infuriated at incompetence, they can now be silenced with pompous mantras about safety and security.
Michael O'Leary, the Irish head of Ryanair, is notorious for his flamboyant belligerence towards unhappy customers. The most famous example came after Ryanair promised its millionth customer, Jane O'Keeffe, free flights for life in 1988. When she telephoned Mr O'Leary in 1997 to complain that her free flights had suddenly been restricted, he was so nasty to her that she took him to court, where the judge ruled in her favour.
Ryanair is known as a "no-frills" airline, on which seats are unallocated and passengers stump up for their own sandwiches. Its view is that, having been sold a ticket at an unusually low price, the customer should belt up and shut up.
Mr O'Leary's policy on customer refunds was pithily expressed to a gentleman from the Financial Times last June: "We don't fall over ourselves if they say 'my granny fell ill'. What part of no refund don't you understand? You're not getting a refund so **** off."
As the Ryanair profits have piled up, however - reaching £172 million last year - so has the bad feeling. Nearly every family has its own pet Ryanair calamity story, compounded by the truculent unwillingness of the airline to offer proper redress. I felt a little left out, but now my family has a Ryanair nightmare to recount too.
Last week, my brother, his wife and their two young children struggled up at 4am in order to be in good time for a 7am Ryanair flight to Northern Ireland. They arrived handsomely within the check-in time, only to be informed by the woman at the desk that she had only one boarding card left.
Three seats, it appeared, were suddenly out of commission. "Why?" asked my brother. After whispered consultation among airline staff, it emerged that "the bolts" were loose, and that the captain had decided the seats weren't safe. Eventually, a male Ryanair official grabbed for the chance to turn a cock-up into a moral victory: "You may be willing to risk your children's safety, sir," he said loftily, "but we are not." The family was invited to hang on until 9.30 that evening in the vague hope of a cancellation.
At this, my brother got extremely annoyed, and the official sternly warned him that if he was going to talk in such a manner, he would have to be escorted off the premises. My brother was just pretty lucky, I suppose, that his son's nappy didn't need changing: for something as serious as that, he could have ended up in jail.
Airlines have had your money - now belt up and take off
By Jenny McCartney
(Filed: 24/08/2003)
Pity poor Mr and Mrs Belsham, who boarded a plane at Dalaman, Turkey, last week en route to Gatwick, London with their baby daughter Sophie, who was suffering from a mild bout of food poisoning: things could only get worse.
Once settled in their seats, with the "fasten seatbelt" sign illuminated, the Belshams needed to change Sophie's nappy. Mr Belsham asked the stewardess to dispose of it, but she refused, so he got up and put it in the bin himself. The stewardess alleged that he then shoved her as he returned to his seat, which Mr Belsham and the other passengers denied.
Two armed Turkish policemen were promptly summoned to bundle Mr Belsham off the flight, leaving a weeping Mrs Belsham - who was forbidden to get off the plane - to struggle home alone. The police released Mr Belsham without charge, but so far the only comment from Air Atlanta Europe has been a prim little remark to the effect that it has "a policy of zero tolerance of physical intimidation of our staff".
We are all familiar by now with the concept of air rage: the explosion of violent ill-feeling from aggrieved passengers. Yet much less has been said about the chippiness which has crept into the demeanour of many airline employees. Their manner suggests that passengers are, at best, wearisome pests. The philosophy might be summarised: Wouldn't The Air Industry Be Great If It Weren't For All The Passengers?
Everyone understands the need for an intensification of airport security, but airlines have used the horrors of September 11, 2001 as an excuse to inflict stagey over-reactions on the docile bulk of the travelling public.
Are you carrying a pair of eyebrow tweezers in your handbag? You're a danger to yourself and others: you obviously want to rush into the cockpit and subject the terrified pilot to a brow reshape. Do you raise your voice in an argument over lost luggage? You're patently a crazed loon and might be better off explaining your frustrations to the police.
It might be argued that truly dangerous passengers - the sort who actually try to crash planes - would be rather anxious not to get into a dispute about the size of their hand luggage before boarding the flight.
Yet, unfortunately for the ordinary passenger, the ostentatious emphasis on "security concerns" and "passenger safety" has come at exactly the same time as the rapid expansion of low-cost airlines such as Ryanair. Such airlines, renowned for their low prices, habitually slip up on the basics of customer care. When passengers become infuriated at incompetence, they can now be silenced with pompous mantras about safety and security.
Michael O'Leary, the Irish head of Ryanair, is notorious for his flamboyant belligerence towards unhappy customers. The most famous example came after Ryanair promised its millionth customer, Jane O'Keeffe, free flights for life in 1988. When she telephoned Mr O'Leary in 1997 to complain that her free flights had suddenly been restricted, he was so nasty to her that she took him to court, where the judge ruled in her favour.
Ryanair is known as a "no-frills" airline, on which seats are unallocated and passengers stump up for their own sandwiches. Its view is that, having been sold a ticket at an unusually low price, the customer should belt up and shut up.
Mr O'Leary's policy on customer refunds was pithily expressed to a gentleman from the Financial Times last June: "We don't fall over ourselves if they say 'my granny fell ill'. What part of no refund don't you understand? You're not getting a refund so **** off."
As the Ryanair profits have piled up, however - reaching £172 million last year - so has the bad feeling. Nearly every family has its own pet Ryanair calamity story, compounded by the truculent unwillingness of the airline to offer proper redress. I felt a little left out, but now my family has a Ryanair nightmare to recount too.
Last week, my brother, his wife and their two young children struggled up at 4am in order to be in good time for a 7am Ryanair flight to Northern Ireland. They arrived handsomely within the check-in time, only to be informed by the woman at the desk that she had only one boarding card left.
Three seats, it appeared, were suddenly out of commission. "Why?" asked my brother. After whispered consultation among airline staff, it emerged that "the bolts" were loose, and that the captain had decided the seats weren't safe. Eventually, a male Ryanair official grabbed for the chance to turn a cock-up into a moral victory: "You may be willing to risk your children's safety, sir," he said loftily, "but we are not." The family was invited to hang on until 9.30 that evening in the vague hope of a cancellation.
At this, my brother got extremely annoyed, and the official sternly warned him that if he was going to talk in such a manner, he would have to be escorted off the premises. My brother was just pretty lucky, I suppose, that his son's nappy didn't need changing: for something as serious as that, he could have ended up in jail.