[thechat] Airlines

Kevin Stevens kjs at ratking.co.uk
Thu Sep 13 16:13:32 CDT 2001


It's been 2 days now, and thankfully this List has calmed down a lot and
seems to be thinking rationally again. I hope, as a microcosm and cross
section of humanity, that this is the feelings worldwide, and that innocent
people will not be attacked or humiliated because their country of origin
*might* be responsible for the attacks. Which brings me to my point, all the
hostility so far has been directed (quite understandably) towards the
perpetrators, but what about those responsible for the lack of security on
internal flights, the airlines themselves?
Now, I could be wrong here, I am only quoting some *expert* on the TV the
other night, but apparently when Clinton first came to office he requested a
survey on internal airport security, and the result was that to raise
security levels to those of international flights would delay the turnaround
time for aircraft and was, therefore, not cost effective. This seems to me
to be yet another case of putting profits before people. On my recent trip
to the States, nearly every flight was delayed because American Airlines had
over booked the flight. This is practiced by probably every airline in the
world, whereby they presume that 5% of people will not turn up for their
flight, so they sell 105% of the seats so they have a full plane, and if to
many people turn up they offer holiday vouchers for anyone willing to give
up their seat and catch the next plane. Now, my plane from Vegas to LA was
held up for over 20 minutes because of this situation, and do remember, the
average 5% of no-shows have already paid for their ticket so the airline is
not out of pocket. This is just greed, plain and simple, and it seems to me
that it is OK for us to be held up so the airline makes more money, but they
won't hold up a flight just to search passengers more thoroughly.
I was talking this over with my wife earlier, and she reminded me that when
we changed planes at Chicago, we went outside the airport for a smoke, and
walked straight back in to the departure lounge through an unattended
security gate. I didn't put any more thought into this until she pointed it
out to me, but do you not think that at least some of the blame should rest
with the greedy corporations that value their profit over the nations
safety?
I'm thinking that maybe some of you know more about this than I do, I'm
merely opening this up for debate. If I am correct then perhaps some of the
anger felt by us all should be directed closer to home.

Kevin Stevens
kjs at ratking.co.uk





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