In Airline Travel, Buckle Up for Discomfort, Indifference – Inside Sources

You can see them everywhere at this time of year: People who have a hollowed-out look.

They are people who have endured the agony of airline flights, from buying a ticket in an online minefield of dynamic pricing and extra charges to having their hopes blown up.

They are the victims of post-flight syndrome, PFS. Treat them kindly. They will recover, though some long-term effects may remain.

These include a determination to drive or take a train next time, and to ask family members who live far away, “Why don’t you visit us this year?”

Online ticket buyers find that getting a reasonable price is like buying a new car. Abandon hope all ye who have entered the dealership, and forget what the advertisement said.

Airlines use dynamic pricing, and it is designed to separate you from your money in subtle and underhanded ways. They teach it in college business schools — at colleges like Harvard and Stanford, which offer MBAs. Airlines hire people from these schools for their skill at giving you less service for more money.

You buy a “basic economy” ticket because you don’t want to pay an extra $100 roundtrip to check your bag. So you drag it through TSA, where the rule is that you are assumed to be a terrorist until proven otherwise.

If you settle for basic economy — the extra-cramped seats near the toilets — you advertise to all that you have no money.

Or for two inches more legroom and less compassion from the cabin crew, you can pay more while still in economy: a word with new meaning when used around dynamic pricing schemes.

This way you can avoid the parlor game in basic economy of wondering who has a weak bladder or who might be going to the toilet to ingest an illegal substance.

OK, squeeze into your seat and wait for your seat mate. He is bound to be a sumo wrestler, a basketball player of either sex or a former football player gone to fat. You will be sharing your little patch of seat whether you want to or not.

About those toilets. The airlines have cut the space allocated to each toilet, so two now occupy space designed for one. This has consequences. Large people get stuck and have to be pulled out by the crew, I am told.

Men, I can attest, aren’t advised to try to take their jackets off in the toilet. They should also decide what they need to do before entering, because turning around, if you are large, is a challenge. Think ahead.

The late financier Pete Peterson once described airline food to me as a classic oxymoron. Well, it has gotten worse since his day.

He said that to me some time in the 1980s. Now you get — if they haven’t run out of it — the shavings of a bird that may or may not have been a chicken in an oleaginous sauce, accompanied by three green beans, a green plant leaf posing as a salad, and some artificially flavored Vaseline for dessert. Pack a candy bar in your hand luggage.

Long gone are the days when airlines hired name chefs and advertised their food as an inducement to fly. Some had dining rooms and others had bars, where the long-haul passenger could belly up and sink a pint or two.

Adding to the horror of economy cabins is the chaos of the terminals, where too many people are crammed into too small a space, announcements are hard to hear, gates change without notice, and cancellations barely earn an apology. My wife tells me the women’s toilets are especially foul.

Oh, you think you can use all those frequent flyer miles to whisk you to a Shangri-La? Forget it. The MBAs have been tampering with those, too. Now you are advised to get an affinity credit card. Like everything else on board, this has an affinity for your money and won’t guarantee you an upgrade or free trip.

I’ll be seeing you  — those who trade our well-being for transportation — in the back of the plane. You can still get one free cup of coffee, but that is bound to end.

Bon voyage, seat mates.