Airline employees around the country are counting the days until Sept. 13, the date when, as some of them put it privately, ”the Clampetts go home.”
They aren`t referring to the TV hillbillies of 90210, but to a clan of unsophisticated fliers who are filling airports and airplanes this summer. With airlines cutting fares by as much as 50 percent for travel between late May and Sept. 13, people who haven`t flown before or in many years and who otherwise would travel by bus or train have taken to the sky.
Their backwardness or naivete about air travel might have been considered amusing or touching in summers past.
But this summer, many airline employees are too tired or discouraged to laugh. They have to serve record crowds while knowing the discounting is creating big losses for their companies and keeping them from using free-travel benefits.
Although making contact is the last thing business people want to do with these infrequent fliers, full-fare-paying business travelers almost invariably are finding themselves consigned to a middle seat and rubbing both elbows with members of what some describe as ”the Greyhound set.”
One Chicago businessman likens air travel these days to ”riding in a bus,” what with long lines at boarding areas, delayed departures and everything but tires and chickens being carried on board.
Airline executives acknowledge that their employees are working under stress this summer. But they contend that their workers are performing nobly and that, overall, things are going smoothly.
At an American Eagle boarding gate at O`Hare International Airport, a passenger service agent for the American Airlines-owned commuter line is smiling, but with clenched teeth. During a free moment, the agent complains about passengers who are rough in the ways of air travel and in manner.
”This summer, you have all this Greyhound garbage, these Clampetts,”
says the agent, who asks not to be identified. ”You`re seeing people who have never traveled in their life, and they cop an attitude” when they are informed about delays, changes in seat assignments and, especially, carry-on baggage restrictions.
”I think it`s amazing these people found their way to the airport,” he says, his contempt unmistakable. ”Maybe someone drove them here.”
Wait just a second.
What kind of snobbism is this? Who are these airline people to put on such airs? Maybe someone should remind them that ”The High and the Mighty”
was about a plane that almost crashed.
After all, hard-working, tax-paying individuals, no matter their walk of life, have the same right as anyone else to discover the romance of aviation. If they have the wherewithal to plunk down $150 for a half-off, two-way ticket between Chicago and Los Angeles or $137 for a round-tripper between Chicago and Orlando, who`s to stop three generations of Joneses, Smiths or Bundys from packing themselves and their household effects onto a plane? This is America.
Everyone knows that Americans love their automobiles and miss them when they can`t drive them on vacation. So why was United Airlines flight attendant Diane Tucker surprised the other week when she tried to stow her jacket in an overhead bin and found a car engine part there? Tucker says she couldn`t identify the part for all the grease.
No shirt, no shoes . . .
Like Tucker, flight attendants at United and other carriers are being provided many surprises by novice passengers. Several flight attendants interviewed say they aren`t used to seeing passengers come on board without shirts or shoes, ask to store food in the galley refrigerator, request things like popcorn or toast, or try to pay for drinks with food stamps.
Flight attendants say there are more than the usual number of infants and unaccompanied minors on planes these days. With the infants come giant strollers and other large pieces of baby gear, which parents try to stow in the overheads.
United flight attendant Bobbie Pilkington says she had to stop one parent from setting up a potty seat in the rear aisle of the plane for the baby to use. On another flight, an adult male passenger asked one of Pilkington`s colleagues to take away a cup filled with a warm, yellowish liquid. The flight attendant assumed, mistakenly, that it was apple juice.
A Northwest Airlines customer service agent in Los Angeles found that you can`t take anything for granted. At flight check-in, the agent asked one passenger if she wanted an aisle or window seat. The passenger replied: ”I just spent $65 on this new hairdo. You don`t really think I would sit by a window, do you?”
Flying playpens
Pilots are missing much of this by simply shutting the cockpit door.
But on a recent West Coast flight, a United captain had to go back to the cabin to admonish two unaccompanied minors, a boy, 11, and his 9-year-old sister, who had been in a food-fight free-for-all.
When the plane landed in Denver, the captain escorted the children to the terminal and telephoned their parents. Mom and Dad assured the captain that the children`s behavior would improve, and they were allowed on their connecting flight to Boston-but not allowed to sit near each other.
According to flight attendant Ellen Golombek, the boy behaved himself, but the girl sat in her aisle seat pinching the behinds of passersby.
Her mischief was minor compared with that of a 12-year-old boy flying unaccompanied on a United flight out of Florida.
As flight attendant Charlotte Costello tells the story, the boy smuggled aboard a 13-pound alligator in a duffel bag. After a stop in Washington, the alligator got loose and proceeded to take a hamburger-size bite out of the leg of a nearby passenger. The plane was forced to return to Washington so the wounded passenger could receive medical attention.
Planes are carrying so much luggage, alligator or otherwise, that airline baggage employees and other ramp workers are racking up considerable overtime this summer, even though their ranks are being swelled by temporary hires.
Thomas Brinkner, airline general chairman for the International Association of Machinists, District 141, which represents ground personnel in Denver for United and USAir, says his members like the overtime but are discouraged by airfare wars.
”You`re giving the product away, and the company isn`t making any money,” he says.
Airlines usually resort to discounting when the economy is in a funk and their choice is to fill seats or ground planes. But this summer`s 50-percent- off fares were 100 percent cutthroat. They were started by a financially weaker carrier trying to grab market share and were matched and extended by stronger lines apparently willing to forgo immediate profits in hopes of reimposing industry price discipline and hastening the demise of struggling competitors.
Because the discounting jams planes, airline employees can`t easily use travel benefits, which allow them and their families to fly free, on a space- available basis. Brinkner says that one mechanic and his family needed four days this summer to fly standby to Denver from Orlando.
Adding insult to injury
For business travelers, ”it`s the worst summer in recent memory,” says Joe Brancatelli, executive editor of Frequent Flyer, a monthly magazine.
He says that business people are upset about the crowded planes, flight delays and mishandled or lost baggage. On top of that, the economy is soft and business stinks, so, he says, don`t expect them to be tolerant of the so-called Greyhound set.
”Not only does the average business person not like these people, but he didn`t get their fares,” Brancatelli notes.
Airlines have been offering reduced fares for the fall and winter, including on international routes. But children will be back in school then, so the volume of traffic isn`t expected to match this summer`s high levels.
This month, major carriers such as American and United have been recording load factors-or the percentage of seats filled by paying customers, not including travelers using certain awards or airline employees-in the 80s, or about 10 percentage points above a year ago.
United says its systemwide load factor on Aug. 16 was 89.6 percent, breaking the record of 89 percent set Jan. 3, 1965.
At O`Hare, there are long lines daily at ticket counters, security check- ins, concession stands and restrooms.
Lisa Howard, a spokeswoman for Chicago`s Department of Aviation, says O`Hare set an all-time high July 31, when 238,000 passengers passed through the airport. She says volume last week averaged about 220,000 a day, about 40,000 more than a year ago and somewhat higher than during the traditionally heavy Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends.
”Every day is Christmas at O`Hare,” she says.
`THIS INSANE ADVENTURE`
If you want to know why Bill Clinton and Al Gore decided to travel by bus this summer, ask an airline flight attendant. Consider this excerpt from a recorded message to United Airlines flight attendants from their union chapter:
”Today is Friday, Aug. 14, and this is Update AFA from the Association of Flight Attendants at United Airlines. . . .
”We`ve now entered the final month of this crushing summer of `welfare airfares.` This insane adventure in mismanagement comes to a merciful close on Sept. 13, the last day on which the human waves of Americans can fill up our flying sardine cans at prices far below the actual cost of operating.
”We`ve had busy summers before, but this one ranks as the all-time champion, as we come to work thinking we`re safety professionals but the flying public sees us as low-level flunkies at a day-care center or geriatric home.
”Just 30 more days, folks, until we see the end of the short-shorts and shower slippers. We`re trying to track down a rumor that all United public-contact personnel will gather at the Betty Ford Center on Sept. 14.”
