Those Incestuous Airlines
Published April 17, 2008
The Mile-High Club has two new members: Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines. The two merged April 15th with a handshake. Merger and a handshake. Isn’t that romantic? Sounds more like a combo meal offered by a house of ill repute.
The Wall Street Journal calls it a marriage. A marriage in Deliverance, maybe. Those in the know suggest United and Continental are standing in the lavatory line waiting patiently for the light to blink “vacant.”
Now for the screw: The merger likely means higher ticket prices, fewer places to go, and — in defiance of all physical law — even more cramped seating.
Ryanair can fly you about 960 miles from Frankfurt, Germany to Belfast, Northern Ireland for $68. Delta will fly you 48 miles less than that, from Phoenix, Arizona to Denver, Colorado for $165 more – and that price is about to go up by 22 percent, from $233 to $284. United comes in at $231 - $163 more than Ryanair; and Continental is charging. American Airlines can come in at $198, but that’s still $130 more than Ryanair. Before long, AA will be charging about $241.
More disconcerting than the cost (differences and forecasted raises) is the flagrant lack of customer service hoisted upon, I mean offered to the flier. Airlines in the United States can talk all the trash they want; there has been a noticeable decline in how customers are regarded.
To be fair there’s also been a rise in the number of people too uncivilized to take a walk, much less a flight, but can they not be filtered out along with all the tiny vials of Listerine? I’ve seen trouble customers make trouble as soon as they entered the airport, but for some reason their behavior was tolerated as if the airline employees all suffered with battered woman syndrome. Many an incident has necessitated airport security meeting the arriving flight – and the offender still gets to fly again. What’s that about?
I’ve flown every one of these airlines – and Ryanair never lost my luggage, treated me like a terrorist, balked at a request for one more snack packet, or threw a fit over a breastfeeding mother.
When my teenaged daughter became sick in the middle of the plane on our way from Frankfurt, Germany to Shannon, Ireland, Ryanair’s flight attendants acted like mothers themselves. Contrarily, when a baby across the aisle from us became ill on a Delta flight, you’d have thought the child had opened the gates to hell the way the flight attendants chastised the young mother – and did nothing to assist her.
Is this apples and oranges – or is there another explanation why the little airline that, proportionately, goes more places and is paying more for fuel than the bigger airlines is charging less for tickets and being more civil to its customers?
I miss capitalism.
Diana (nee Gulick) Hartman is the Culture and Tastes Editor for Blogcritics.org. She is a freelance writer, mother of three, and a (Ret.) US Marine spouse. She is a Wichita, Kansas native, having also lived in the California desert, eastern North Carolina and Stuttgart, Germany. She currently resides in Oceanside, California. She is a contributing writer to Holiday Writes.
- Those Incestuous Airlines
- Published: April 17, 2008
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Culture: Travel
- Writer: Diana Hartman
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Comments on this articleComments
Wow. Where to start. How about "I miss capitalism." This seems so ironic. The flying public as well as this author react so negatively when airlines raise fairs in an attempt to be profitable. That IS capitalism. Why are the airlines treated like a public service? Heaven forbid the airlines attempt to make a profit by charging the maximum fare that supply of available seats warrants, as basic economics would suggest makes sense.
Are you aware that during airline reorganizations after 9/11, U.S. airline employees were stripped of many of their benefits or laid off entirely, and salaries, in many cases, were cut in half? That is still the case, several years later, regardless of increasing ticket prices.
In addition, since a majority of the American traveling public seems to think airfares are too expensive already, very few are willing to pay extra for better service. Put airfares for four airlines on the same route on the internet and most travelers will pick the fare that is one dollar cheaper regardless of which airline it is. Airlines study their markets constantly and offer the products people are willing to pay for. If you won't fly airline A for $5 more even though they offer more pillows, then airline A removes the pillows. Simple as that.
Using one fare from a foreign carrier for a benchmark to compare airline service is an inaccurate comparison. Was this a promotional fare? Does Ryan Air always charge this fare for flights of the same length? Is Ryan air willing, as many airlines are, to lose money on a particular route in order to maintain market share? A Wikipedia entry about Ryan Air says "Critics have attacked its hidden 'taxes' and fees, and limited customer services, and charged that it practices deceptive advertising. In October 2006, Ryanair was voted the world's most disliked airline in a survey by the TripAdvisor website."
Airplanes are expensive. Operating airplanes is expensive. Think about how much it would cost to move 300 automobile seats from Boston to San Francisco in fuel, maintenance, and operating costs, and then factor in how much time is saved on an aircraft. After that, you might not think that the cost of an airplane ticket is such a bad deal.
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In fact, yes, there probably is a good reason that Ryanair tickets cost less. They are an Irish airline. Unlike U.S. carriers, the airline industry is often government subsidized in other countries. U.S. carriers receive no such funds the government.
Unfortunately, with the increasing cost of fuel, the price of airline tickets will probably continue to be on the rise in the U.S. Until oil prices level out, there is no clear end in sight.
I agree with you though that I would like to see the cost made up for with the level of service received. Being extra nice to customers may be one of the underlying factors that will keep us flying, or at least help us to choose which U.S. airline to fly.