I am now to the point where I will only travel when it is absolutely necessary.
Hi Tom.....
A tale of two cities for you.....which illustrates what it will take to save the airline industry, and what is being done in one place (your airport) to try to kill it.
I travelled over Thanksgiving week with my family and my sister in law's family. We had ten people, including seven children ranging in age from 12 years to four months. We were travelling on the two busiest days of the season....Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Monday morning afterwards. We were flying out of two of the busiest five or so airports in the country......O’Hare in Chicago and LAX.
The experience on Wednesday was, quite simply, the best family flying experience we have ever had, period. Before or after 9/11. We approached the airport for a noon flight around 1015 am. The security was present outside at several places, but curbside stopping and checkin was permitted and handled smoothly and efficiently. Most of all, it was done with a degree of friendliness by the skycaps and other personnel. We then walked inside and were greeted by employees dressed in holiday costumes, handing candy canes to the children, smiling, wishing everyone a pleasant journey. Employees were everywhere assisting people with the checkin process, which took all of three or four minutes even though my wife had been flagged for extra security screening throughout the process.
We then proceeded to security. The United terminal at O’Hare has doubled the number of security checkpoints since 9/11. All are fully staffed, including National Guardsmen. There was one highly publicized mistake made there about a month ago.....and as a result the screenings have become more careful and rigorous. But the crucial thing is, they have added capacity to the process to make it function. Not only have they doubled the number of checkpoints, there was also a work crew in there the day before Thanksgiving adding another bank of checkpoints in between the existing ones. They were working hard, with a sense of urgency that makes me believe that they had been instructed to get that additional checkpoint built quickly. That despite the fact that the security line, even on this busy holiday, was less than five minutes. We were screened thoroughly but politely.
We then proceeded to the gate. My wife and baby were gate checked with incredible thoroughness, with a lengthy hand search of every carryon including the diaper bag. We had absolutely no problem with that, and it was done in a professional but polite manner, with no rudeness at all. The flight was delayed, but the airline was excellent about providing updates, finding a spare plane, and adding fuel to allow us to cut the flying time down to 3 hours (usually it is closer to 4). At all times there was an evident concern for the customer. Extra kids’ meals were given to our group, they allowed us one of the flight’s two empty seats to be adjacent to us so we would not have to hold the baby on our laps, and all in all there was a striving to make the flight experience pleasant.
My 6-year old son is an airplane and geography buff. It was a clear day, and he had a window seat on a 747 with his map of the U.S. in front of him. He picked out the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers as we crossed those, and several major cities, and the mountains of Colorado. Then we crossed over Northern Arizona, my son following the Colorado River as it carves the canyons and gorges of the Southwest. The pilot announced he had received permission to descend to 25,000 feet and bank over the Grand Canyon so that everyone on both sides of the airplane could see it from above. The older kids clustered around the windows in the back and my son and I watched from his seat. The entire experience, with many kids on board, was about creating a sense of adventure and discovery within the boredom of three hours on a plane. Even the adults loved it.
After we landed at LAX, though we were more than an hour late, several people actually applauded the flight crew for making the experience so pleasurable. And the thing is, it didn’t cost more to do it that way, it just meant trying harder at all points in the process.
Unfortunately, as good as our outbound experience was, our return from LAX on Monday was by far the worst airport experience I have ever encountered. Worse than European airports like Heathrow where security has always been a bit of a hassle, worse than New Delhi or other developing countries with their lower level of amenities, worse even than Detroit.
It begins with the entry onto the airport property. Police check every incoming vehicle. That I don’t have a problem with, in fact it is great. But then, after they have checked every vehicle (something which is not even done at all at O’Hare), they still do not allow curbside check or even curbside drop off. You could not even drive up to the United terminal and drop off your luggage and family. We should have known we were in for a problem when we entered the airport road just after 7 (for a 9 am flight) and saw Terminal 1 (I believe that is the Southwest Airlines terminal). There was a line of human beings, presumably awaiting a security screen, stretching out the door and down the sidewalk all the way to and I think a little past the entrance to Terminal 2. I’m not sure, but I think that is a couple hundred yards distance.
Our flight was from Terminal 7. No line outside, at least, but no way to get to the Terminal at all without entering the parking structure. Ten people (including 7 kids) and 22 pieces of luggage (including stroller, car seat, carryon backpacks for kids, etc.). We sent a couple people in our group ahead to get luggage carts, which took ten minutes or so. Then we worked our way to the terminal. Unfortunately, the parking they had steered us to was on the arrival level, and the building entrances were blocked....with Do Not Enter signs. We went in anyway when someone came out....only to discover that the only elevator in the terminal was broken. Our choices were to herd the group 200 yards to Terminal 6 or Terminal 8 (and then the same 200 yards back) or find some other way to the ticket counter. Fortunately we noticed another family in a similar predicament. They were using the outside escalator as a conveyor belt, with adults posted at the top and the bottom.....and feeding their bags and children up the escalator one at a time. We waited til they finished and then did the same....22 bags, seven children.....up the escalator one at a time, creating a huge pile at the top. Then find more luggage carts since we had to leave ours at the bottom, and finally into the line to check the luggage.
My sister in law went first, checked her bags to Detroit, then took her kids and most of mine into the security line. We then checked our bags and by the time we got inside, she had been allowed to go through security early because of the kids. We were refused that same courtesy with the baby, and were told to wait. The line was 100 yards long, and because of the obstacle course on the way in, it was now a little past 8. Our flight was at 9. The time went past....810, 820, 830, 840, 850..... and finally we reached the front of the line.....only to be told by the fourth set of employees we encountered that strollers were only allowed in line 1 and we were in line 4. There were only four checkpoints and screening machines, compared to around 20 at O’Hare. And O’Hare was building more, while there was no evidence at LAX that any additional checkpoints were being considered. I managed to cross over to Line 1 carrying the stroller over my head and barge through.....and then pick up my bags back at line 4 and in a full out sprint of about 100 yards make it to the gate just as the final page requesting my immediate presence at the gate was announced. At that point the gate agent informed me that they absolutely could wait no longer, and I told her that with all the broken elevators and security obstacles it was a wonder we were there at all....and that my wife was just behind me. I didn’t know that security had held her up with the stroller and insisted she take an old, creaky, slow elevator instead of an escalator to the gate level. I managed to hold off the gate agent for three minutes, at one point by hand signalling my kids to walk past her onto the entryway ..... thus buying us a crucial additional minute while she walked down to fetch them since she hadn’t processed their boarding passes yet. At that precise moment, as the gate agent gave the instruction to close the gate entrance, my wife came careening around the corner with the baby....and we were allowed onto the flight.
As I took my seat I noticed a tear in my son’s eye. He is six, but usually not much of a whiner most of the time....and he loves airplanes....so I wondered why he was upset. It turned out that when he went through security, his plastic Buzz Lightyear toy was inspected ..... and the security guy said that the plastic “rocket pack”---a small decorative rounded piece of red see-through plastic about three inches or so high – was a dangerous item because it might contain some sort of real explosive. And so...in front of my son....the security agent had snapped the toy in two.....thrown away the red piece....and handed the remainder, jagged edges and all, back to my son. I placated him by telling him that we would buy him another, and then by getting him to look out the window as we flew over the Pacific coast just after take off, but I thought to myself.....I am all in favor of security, but this is not advancing the goal of security at all.
The stark difference between O’Hare and LAX on days with similar travel volume carries within it a lesson for the airline industry. You can run things in a humane and friendly way, and people will travel, even enjoy it, even recapture the spirit of adventure from the early days of commercial aviation for themselves and their children. Or you can be assholes about it and make the experience so godawful that no one will fly at all. |
