The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

The Wrongologist
has a few bones to pick with United Airlines.

He and Ms. Oh So Right were
scheduled to fly at 6:00am on Monday from Sacramento, CA to Chicago, and on to
Newark, NJ. The plane was rejected by the Captain because a flap couldn’t move.
Makes you wonder how the plane landed the night before, and how the crew that
flew it in didn’t know about the problem. Anyway, fight was cancelled.

We were
told by customer service that there was no other possible way to get from Sacramento
to the East coast until the following day. Except that the Wrongologist was
able to get the United call center to change his reservation to San Francisco to Newark direct, leaving
3 hours later. San Francisco is a $300, hour and a half ride away, so, we grab a cab, and we make
the flight, to find that we do not have the extended seat room that we paid $68.00
for.

That will
be the subject of a rant with their call center today.

Also, United
has “upgraded” its in-flight entertainment to DirecTV™! Sounds great, 250
channels of sleep-inducing goodness, but it is pay-per-view and United no
longer offers any free in-flight entertainment. And the DirecTV™ costs $7.95
for the flight. Another marketing triumph by United Airlines! Almost no one
sitting near the Wrongologist purchased the entertainment. This looks like it
will have a similar usage arc to the phone calls from your seat upgrade that
United struck out with in a decade ago.

Finally,
we land in Newark, 16 minutes early. Nice! Except that we wait on the ground
for ONE HOUR, ostensibly for a gate.

Back to
the leg room issue: American Airlines, which is merging with US Airways, has announced plans to add more seats to its Boeing 737s and
McDonnell Douglas MD-80s.

Mark
Gerchick, formerly of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and who now
writes about air travel, told NPR  that 20 years ago flyers could expect about
34 inches of legroom in economy; the standard is now around 31 inches, with
some airlines going as low as 28 inches. Mr. Gerchick:

Surprisingly,
American claims passengers will
benefit from less leg room since FAA rules require that it add another
flight attendant to its 737 crews once the number of seats on the planes goes
over the current 150. (The FAA requires at least one flight attendant per 50 seats.)

Really? Another
“Flight Attendant” per flight? Actually, it’s one more “Sales
Associate” per flight. Sure, in a real emergency, an additional attendant may
be a good thing, but since airplanes are our safest form of travel, those
emergencies are thankfully very few and very far-between.


And since free food and drinks have/are disappearing, at least in coach, there
is no doubt that the additional person will be there to sell, sell, sell. Not
that there’s anything wrong with that.

The Dallas Morning News has
a detailed graphic showing how the number of seats on
American’s 737s and MD-80s have changed over time. But that isn’t the whole
story, since the size and placement of the seats themselves have changed. Most
modern economy cabins include economy-plus seats with extra legroom, which reduce
the space available to other passengers. American claims that some of the 2.5
inches lost per passenger will be made
up by thinner seats.

Yep, less padding in the seats. Foam padding: Another up sell opportunity! 

So the
Wrongologist, on his United flight was a victim of two trends that all airlines
are driving, and they pull in opposite directions:

On the one
hand, even full-service airlines like United and American are trying to cram as
many passengers into the back of the plane as possible.

On the
other, you have the airlines’ desire to up-sell to customers who are unwilling
to pay for business or first class. Airlines are happy to offer better entertainment
services to passengers in coach—but only in return for a fee.

In
the old days of US aviation, when the government regulated air travel routes so
there was limited competition, airlines charged enough to be at least marginally profitable flying at 50% of
capacity with lots more legroom in coach.  The crunch began in the 1990’s, with low-cost
carriers like Southwest cutting into United’s market share.

United
filed for bankruptcy on December 9, 2002, the largest airline to do so, along
with Pan-Am, Eastern, Delta, and US Airways (twice).

Back
then travelers and their employers paid the going rate. Most of the casual and
leisure travelers didn’t fly–it was too expensive. Things changed drastically
post-deregulation. Now to remain profitable, airlines have to pack as many
people in as they can and must fly at
~90% of capacity to stay reasonably profitable.

Being
uncomfortably cramped is the price we pay for being able to fly at today’s
prices (particularly for leisure travel) which are far lower in inflation-adjusted
terms than what was the standard price prior to deregulation.

And
the era of one-size-fits-all coach cabins is gone. The sad thing is if we did
return to less crowded, more comfortable flying we would also have to return to
paying far higher fares than what we pay now.