D.L. Stewart online exclusive: Whatever happened to happy skies?

A column in Monday’s USA Today concerning the increasingly-lousy treatment airline passengers are getting really hit home with me. The reason, I suspect, is because at the time I read it I was folded into an airline’s coach seat, following some really lousy treatment.

The flight originated in Florida, where I had gone on a fishing trip with two of my sons. My return is through Washington, D.C., where one of the sons lives. As an almost-every-other-week-for-business flyer, he’s booked in first class. As an only-when-I’m-visiting-my-kids flyer, I’m booked in coach. But at the Miami airport we stop at the ticket counter an hour before the boarding time to see if we could upgrade my fare so I can sit with him.

“The cost is $70,” the ticket agent informs us.

“Well, that would be worth it,” I agree. I hand her my credit card, which she runs and hands back.

“OK,” she says, “you’re seventh on the list.”

“What?”

“Seventh.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” I point out. “Six other people people aren’t going to cancel in the next hour. If you had told us I’d be seventh I never would had given you my card. So just cancel the transaction.”

“It’s non-refundable. But it will be put into your account.”

“What account?”

“Your frequent flyer account.”

“I’m not a frequent flyer.”

She shrugs.

“I think we need to speak to your supervisor,” my son suggests.

She waves in the direction of another counter, which is approximately halfway to Fort Lauderdale. When my son and I get there, we locate a supervisor who is every bit as helpful as the ticket agent. So I ask to speak with HER supervisor, who, she says is not there right now; apparently supervisors don’t have to work on Monday afternoons. But she helpfully gives us the 800 number of someone to call.

When I get back to Dayton on Monday night, my wife, who’s a great deal more diplomatic and patient than I, dials the 800 number and speaks with a series of representatives who are highly-trained to say the word “no.” The call ends with my diplomatic, patient wife slamming down the phone in frustration.

Admittedly, my lousy treatment story isn’t exactly breaking news. As a consumer advocacy spokesman is quoted as saying in that USA Today column, “The airlines used to brag about flying the friendly skies. But that happy slogan has been corrupted into flying the abusive skies.”

So just about anyone in the past decade who has flown on an airplane he or she doesn’t own probably has a lousy treatment story.

Feel free to share.

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