Can’t Airline Customers Get a Little Love?
My opinion is that the United States long ago became a culture in which burdensome business practices underscore a stark, uncaring, cavalier attitude toward our citizens. Today’s news brings, yet again, a call for Federal legislation that prevents airline passengers from being stuck inside planes for more than three hours on the tarmac. This is in reaction to a Continental Express flight (2816) which kept its customers on board for six hours. Instead of moving quickly to give their customers a little love, Continental first pointed its finger to Express Jet Airlines. Express Jet Airlines pointed its finger, in turn, to the Rochester airport.
Finger pointing to wiggle out of responsibility for treating customers decently has long been a theme in American businesses. We’ve been through the “trapped on the tarmac” routine before - two years ago the hue and cry for Federal legislation arose when passengers on a JetBlue flight waited an interminable eleven hours on the ground at JFK. Two years later, it’s happened again for a long enough period of time to get media exposure.
Frankly, if businesses would decide to take responsibility for treating customers with care, politeness, and concern there wouldn’t be such pressure to legislate things like how long passengers must sit on a plane before the business that took their money treated them like humans instead of cogs in a machine. Lest I be thought of as coming down too heavy on businesses, however, let me quickly point out that our government engages in the same reactive posturing. Also in today’s news? A call for “tighter airspace rules” around New York City after a small plane crashed into a helicopter carrying Italian tourists. The story created yet another merry-go-round of opinions and finger-pointing. Read more