What's with the backlash against differing levels of service in the airline
industry?
Why is the press spending so much time interviewing people who think that
frequent fliers and people willing to pay first or business class fares
should have to do everything exactly the same as the once-a-year
cheap-as-possible travellers? It seems socialistic, even communistic, to
say that people who earn preferential treatment from an airline shouldn't
be allowed to accept this preferential treatment.
When I get in a shorter check-in line for United at Dulles, it's not
because I'm a white male. It's because I'm a loyal United customer who's
flown about 100,000 miles in the past three years, with about a third of
that in business class. United has a higher profit margin on my travels
than it does on my brother's travels, and so by the rules of capitalism,
United may find it in their best interest to treat me especially well.
And it works, too. A year ago, when I had to make weekly trips between
Washington and Minneapolis, on four of those weeks I took United through
that black hole called O'Hare instead of taking the non-stop flights on
Northworst between IAD/DCA and MSP. (To be fair, it's only "Northworst" if
you're travelling through Detroit, and hopefully that's changing with the
new terminal. They've got their act together at MSP. But I digress.) United
got the profit of those four trips, all booked on about three days notice
at nearly full price ("Hey, boss, am I going back again next week?" "Are
you done yet?" "No, not yet." "OK, book the flights."). It didn't cost my
employer more; United and Northwest have virtually identical fares between
those two cities.
So if United wants to make me happy because they value my business, why
should I have to wait in the same long check-in lines and sit in the same
coach seats with no leg room? For that matter, if I'm going to go through
the same security checks, is it so bad if there's a separate screening
queue that keeps just as busy but is just for the frequent travellers who
actually have their stuff together and can keep the line moving?
If you want one class of service and no perks, I think you've got two
choices: Southwest and Aeroflot. And I'm not even sure about Aeroflot. :-)
But one of the principles of American enterprise is that businesses are
allowed to prefer frequent or lucrative customers (assuming no racial or
ethnic discrimination) and consumers are allowed to choose (or receive
protections against certain monopolistic practices).
</rant>
Thanks,
Nick