Michael Toth is charging toward the gate at La Guardia Airport.
It’s the Boston advertising executive’s last chance to catch a shuttle home after a day’s work in Manhattan, and he has promised to attend graduation the next morning at his son’s school.
“Am I late?” Toth, huffing, asks a gate attendant who peers at him over her glasses. Yes, he’s late. The attendant not only knew he would be–she had called the check-in desk to see whether he was on the way–but was holding the 10 p.m. shuttle’s door open an extra minute to ensure he would make the flight.
Such pampering, unheard of on excursion flights where plane doors can slam in vacationers’ faces, is one of the unspoken, unadvertised perks in the world of frequent shuttle fliers.
The shuttle flights operated by US Airways and Delta Air Lines out of Boston, New York and Washington are a vital link for businesses there.
An estimated 2.4 million shuttle tickets are sold each year, often to people who fly at least once a week. Many are card-carrying members of the business elite–“Type A” personalities who are always in a hurry.
They do not simply read newspapers; they rifle through them in search of useful information. They arrive at the gate seconds before–even after–the scheduled departure so they do not waste time waiting.
Shuttle-ites are cordial. Unless they are angry.
“Do I look happy?” asks a New England banker as popcorn (“dinner”) spewed from his mouth. He grumbled about a flight delay from Louisville into LaGuardia, which caused him to miss the shuttle “by two minutes.”
The banker, who wore an “MJG” monogram on his wrinkled, white shirt but wouldn’t reveal his name, was in an unforgiving mood and threw his bag down in disgust. The pilot “didn’t apologize for being late,” said MJG. “I’ll get home. My kids will be in bed. If I’d made it, I would’ve seen them.”
Shuttle-ites are the airlines’ most demanding customers. They rarely pay for their tickets–their companies do–yet they fly so regularly Delta and US Airways do all they can to keep customers happy and planes running with the precision of German trains.
There are no hassles with reservations; tickets can be purchased at the gate. Delta has installed Bloomberg Business News computers near its shuttle gate so investment bankers and money managers flying from Boston to New York can quickly check stock prices or financial news. The airlines supply dozens of complimentary newspapers and obscure magazines with titles such as Going Bonkers? and Reputation Management.
And shuttle-ites can quickly turn disloyal if they see a better option.
Tiny T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I., which offers more than a dozen flights a day to the New York and Washington areas, has seen an explosion in traffic in recent months after completing a highly publicized terminal renovation with new service by Southwest Airlines, which flies to Baltimore Washington International Airport.
Patti Goldstein, the airport’s spokeswoman, cannot say how many who pass through T.F. Green Airport are shuttle defectors. But she gives one good reason for residents of southern or eastern Massachusetts to bypass Logan: “It’s very, very easy to get in and out of, and it’s a hassle-free terminal.”
Hassle-free is what shuttle riders like.
The demeanor of flight attendants, as described by Norah Hickey, a crisply dressed executive with Trex Medical who waited recently at the US Airways gate at Logan airport for her return to New York, is “not unfriendly.”
In shuttle language, that is a compliment: “They know they’re dealing with business-people who want to get where they’re going.”
If a frequent flier needs help, flight attendants spring into action.
Raja Ramachandran, an owner of Cambridge software company PFN Inc. was on crutches after breaking his left leg skiing. The crew began saving aisle seat 4D for him so he could stretch out. “The shuttle people would say, `It’s our hobbler again,’ ” he said.
Once in the Boeing 727, passengers want to be left alone. To work. On the plane, each passenger’s preference is quickly revealed. There are those who always sit on the aisle, for quick exits, or by the window, for privacy. Some sit in the front of the plane, for quick exits, and some sit in back for quick exits out the back door, which the airlines open at some gates.
The civil atmosphere can get ugly on a crowded plane. Armrest wars have been known to break out between passengers jockeying for space, according to Toth, who has become a keen observer of shuttle culture in his commutes between the Concord, Mass., and Manhattan offices of Toth Design & Advertising. “This,” he said, rubbing his two armrests, “is like territory.” That’s what is meant by A-personality: “A is for armrest,” he said.
Dealmaking seems to set the tone on the Boston-New York route. The New York-Washington flight is all about power-brokering and connections. While regular shuttle fliers often recognize one other, shuttle diplomacy requires that they not necessarily speak.
There is a pervasive sense among shuttle riders that “you’re on a plane with very important people,” though one doesn’t always know who they are, said Jonathan Rieder, occasional shuttler and chairman of the sociology department at Barnard College. So in a shuttle crammed with important people reading important papers, he noted that people try to be careful about what they say.
Toth’s day had started with a 6 a.m. photo shoot in Soho for a client and ended with a late-night charity dinner amid New York’s glitterati at the Tavern on the Green restaurant.
After a hectic day, as his plane descended to Logan, he said: “That’s what you gotta think about. Home.”
