I just arrived in D.C. after being delayed for almost 5 hours at O'Hare--again!!! Initially, it was the weather and United did not even bother to put more than one customer service representative to rebook all the pissed off passengers. As a result, the standby list soon became an unmanagable mess as the over-worked, over-stressed out customer service representatives called names in a rapid succession, before people could even show up, skipping names. As the flights kept being delayed, something else caught my eye: the reasons for the delay kept changing. It was weather, and once the weather cleared, it soon became "servicing an airplane," or "mechanical error," etc.
Which made me think that there might be something else going on here. I am not saying the airlines are deliberately delaying flights, but it seems pretty certain to me that these delays are of great financial benefit for their profit margins. Think about it: the delayed flights allow passengers to accumulate to one flight instead of being scattered across flights and having half-empty planes fly around, wasting fuel, the cost of which had thrown some airlines to the edge of bankruptcy. In the past few years (especially the last month) airline executives have complained that their margin of profit is suffering from the inability to pack planes to the capacity. "Weather problems" seem like a godsend to me.
What is infuriating about the whole mess is the way the average American consumer reacts. Instead of demanding his/her rights be respected, the average American traveler shrugs his/her shoulders and accepts it as inevitable. In a conversation with one such passenger I suggested that in case of delays, airlines should be mandated to give us food coupons so that we don't spend money on overpriced airport food. He said that would be unreasonable since airlines are really hurting today. So this passenger did not think of her own interests before putting the interests of a major, multi-billion dollar corporation ahead of their own. This is another sign that the average Joe has internalized the "spirit of capitalism" to such an extent that he not only fails to protest getting screwed, he asks for more!
While seeing my name jump from one standby list to another today, I thought of the much stricter consumer-protection laws in the European Union. There airlines are required to accommodate the consumer in case of delays, including weather problems. And yet, most of these airlines stay competitive and offer amazing deals (you can always find dirt cheap flights between European cities where you only pay the taxes and fees) to their consumers. Of course many go out of business, but that's the nature of the trade.
And meanwhile, our government takes our taxes to subsidize the losses of our airlines and sits idly by, even supporting, their daily indulgence in screwing the passenger every which way! Unbelievable!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
On the topic of consumers internalizing the rhetoric of capitalism to the point that they think of the company's self-interest before their own, I also think it is shocking that people would allow themselves to go along with this. Once, when the phone company over-charged me, I called in to correct it, and the company made the correction. Then I asked for a rebate of $20, with the rationale that I was doing their job - they have an accounting error on the books, and I corrected it - and I should be compensated. And they did give me the rebate.
In a weird way, though, putting the company before the consumer is a very perverted form of capitalist logic, not necessarily in comformity with capitalism itself. The mentality they have internalized is an inversion of the consumer-service relationship, which is just bizarre.
Under the capitalist system, its completely and totally rational for the consumer (in this case the flyer) to demand quality customer service with the threat of never flying with that airline again. You are actually much more in line with the spirit of capitalism, in that you feel that the service provider has a responsibility to the consumer, not the other way around.
Your fellow flyer seems to be the one who doesn't understand capitalism. Imagine someone saying "we should put up with bad service and cold food at this restraunt because its not doing well financially." Of course its not doing well financially BECAUSE of the lousy food and bad service.
This inverted logic is still evoked when it comes to the auto industry - "by American because the American auto makers are in bad shape." Yeah, there in bad shape because they make inefficient vehicles noone wants to buy. (An aside, don't by this 'you're not supporting the American worker' bollucks, either, since Japanese automakers employ almost as many unionized American labor).
We watched a great "film" last night from 1976 called Rollerball, starring James Cahn as the star athlete of a violent rollerskating sport. It's set in the distant future, after the "corporate wars." Nationalism has failed and three major corporations run the world. Aside from the ridiculousness of the whole thing, it was really quite intriguing. Before the rollerball game they play the company anthem and it seems to me that we're not far off from hearing such an anthem in the stands. For a long time I've been bothered by the re-naming of public arenas to reflect their major corporate sponsors: Mile High Stadium is now Invesco Field. It's lost it's regional identity (hm, mile high, where could it be?) and become somehow anonymous. Plus it's put Invesco into the daily language of thousands of people who would normally never mention that name. (I honestly didn't know what the hell Invesco was- it's a big huge financial security.... something).
Post a Comment