Joel Chusid’s Airline Corner (October 2010)

October 25, 2010 — 1 Comment

Guest Editor Joel Chusid

Guest Editor

From Upgrade to Downgrade

People will do almost anything to get an upgrade, especially on a long-haul flight. There are various “legal” methods, using mileage or coupons, and some airlines have a last-minute paid upgrade program. Airlines know that seats being a perishable commodity, the more you can squeeze out of a customer before the door closes, the more profitable the flight.  When the economy cabin is oversold, airlines usually upgrade their elites or have some other prioritization plan if there is space available up front.  In flight, crews rarely have the authority to upgrade anyone.  Even trying to use the lavatory in another cabin is prohibited on some flights. A few weeks ago, a Polish businessman traveling in Business Class on a Chicago-bound LOT flight, demanded during the flight his son be moved up from economy. The crew refused, and a scuffle ensued. The pilot elected to return to Warsaw, and the businessman and son were removed.  Needless to say, the rest of the passengers were not happy, and for good reason.

Mugged on a Plane

Most people feel pretty secure on an airplane in terms of safety nowadays, but what about crime?  Yes, it does happen. When a passenger loses something of a value on a plane, it’s usually because they forgot it in a seat pocket or overhead bin.  I cringe when my fellow passenger clips his Blackberry or iPhone on the seat pocket. I did that once, years ago, on a flight to Miami, and that’s how I almost lost my Palm Pilot. And yes, seats do eat items. On a recent international flight I boarded on arrival, a passenger insisted he had his Blackberry on landing, and then it disappeared.  After an engineer was called to take his seat apart, it was finally found, but it took a half hour.  Items tend to be left behind, and the more electronics we carry, the more it will continue to happen. Airline and airport lost and found departments are full of all sorts of things. Those that don’t get claimed usually end up at the famous Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. (www.unclaimedbaggage.com).

While rare, unfortunately theft can occur, whether from a fellow passenger or yes, even a crew member. They’re human, too. Consider 47-year old Air France flight attendant “Lucie R.” who regularly worked the business class cabin on the busy Paris-Tokyo route.  In January, a number of passengers on a Tokyo to Paris flight reported cash and valuables missing from their carry-on luggage which, of course, airlines don’t take responsibility for. It wasn’t until July, however, that the airline completed an investigation and arrested the flight attendant turned thief.  She reportedly drove an expensive sports car and was enjoying a lifestyle well above her pay level. Police discovered numerous stolen items at her home and in safe deposit boxes ranging from cash, checks, credit card numbers and jewelry that included a Cartier wedding ring. The “mile high thief” confessed to 26 crimes, but Air France believed that there were more. The carrier had reports of more than 142 thefts for the first six months of the year.  Japanese businessmen were known for carrying large amounts of cash, credit cards and valuables and were usually asleep on the red-eye flight when “Lucie R.” had time to rifle through carry-on bags and clothing.  She does give the flight crew profession a bad name, but I don’t think she’ll be flying the routes of Air France anymore.

The Glamour of Flying Redux

Airline travel has changed completely from those golden days of the 60s and 70s, but if you’re one of those nostalgic people who loves to look back, consider joining the Facebook group, “Flying in the Groovy 1960’s and 1970’s”, the era when women wore hats and white gloves instead of jeans and men wore jackets and ties (think “Mad Men”), not shorts and flip-flops, to board an airplane.  Members share photos and videos of that memorable era. The quirky website, “Dark Roasted Blend” also has four separate photo sites devoted to flight attendants (known in that era as stewardesses) and their stylish, sexy outfits that airlines used to sell glamorous air travel. See the site at: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/02/glamour-of-flight.html

Three, Two, One, No Pilots!

Ryanair’s colorful CEO, Michael O’Leary, made news recently by announcing he felt that the airline could train a flight attendant to take the place of the co-pilot as a cost-saving effort. After the initial shock, a lot more has been published on the idea. Think about it. Years ago, trolleys and buses, especially in Europe, had a driver and a conductor to collect tickets.  Some shuttle trains are now operated remotely. So what about airplanes? I admit I am skeptical, and I feel much safer with two pilots up front. The Ryanair idea has actually occurred in practice, in at least two widely reported incidents, although a 2004 FAA found that flight crew “incapacitation” or “impairment” occurred 47 times in one year. On an Air Canada Boeing 767 flight from Toronto to London two years ago, the co-pilot became “belligerent and uncooperative” and was suffering from some sort of mental breakdown so he had to be sedated by two doctors on board. A flight attendant assisted with the landing. Last June a flight attendant, albeit with an expired pilot’s license, helped the captain land an American Airlines Boeing 767 when the co-pilot became ill on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago. The plane can be flown with a single pilot, and computers do much of the work, but that leaves little in the way of redundancy.  The 2004 study concluded that a second pilot was the reason for the exceptionally good safety records of air carrier today.

There are reports that some of the cargo carriers want to develop single-pilot long-haul operations where the takeoff and landing would be handled by a single pilot and the “cruise” would be handled remotely while the pilot napped. And with drones flying military missions, at some point in the future, we might see cargo and then passenger flights flown the same way. The FAA recently funded a grant for Auburn University to study exactly this. Still not very reassuring to me, since I remember the very old joke of passengers being welcomed aboard a plane by a voice that said “Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen. This flight is being flown completely automatically. There is no pilot, but do not be alarmed. Nothing can go wrong…can go wrong….can go wrong…..”

Mini Road Warrors

On a given day, there are hundreds if not thousands of children flying alone, what the airlines call “UMs” (unaccompanied minors). They reach their destination safely, although they can occasionally be delayed. Delta switched the paperwork on two nine year olds last summer and sent the Boston-bound kid to Cleveland and vice-versa. A lot of today’s UM’s are as bright, if not brighter, than some adult passengers and those youngsters would never have been forced on a to a plane they believed was not going to their destination. Nine-year old Julien Reid is one of those mini-road warriors, who regularly commutes between his dad in San Francisco and mom in Ottawa.  One early July morning, Julien flew from San Francisco to Chicago O’Hare, then taken to a “cramped” children’s waiting room and forgotten. The young vegetarian was given a McDonalds hamburger and left to the entertainment which consisted of a single video that ran on a loop all day. Late in the day, Julien called his mother on his prepaid cell phone and told her that when he asked, he was told that bad weather had delayed his flight, but she knew the flight he was booked on had already arrived. Demanding to talk to the adult in charge, she learned someone had slipped up. Just a few weeks ago, a Colombian 15-year old was able to fly from Bogota to Santiago, pass through no less than five checkpoints at El Dorado Airport (I’ve personally been through all five!), and wasn’t discovered until he arrived in Chile without documents.  Kids traveling alone are almost invariably well-behaved, but children traveling with families are another story. The website, Skyscanner.com, polled users and found that some, presumably in jest, suggested putting noisy children in the cargo hold.

Thank you Joel.

Follow the Airliners Gallery on Flickr Photostream (new photos) on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.