8 Comments

I second Gary's comments about the TSA people and flight attendants. Indeed I was troubled by a certain disregard for the "rude, officious, and incompetent people" who suffer as workers from the same neo-liberal regime that we as travelers do, not the mention the racist characterizations of TSA agents and the flight attendants' challenges in managing unruly and increasingly threatening passengers.

Expand full comment

Oh Claire we’ve got to be related.

Not to mention the post-9/11 bailouts. I think there have been four (2001, plus three discrete bailouts during the Covid-19 pandemic). When the good times roll the share buybacks fatten shareholders and when tough times hit taxpayers are expected to bail out the shareholders.

The most galling absurdity is the study you cited (I believe it was by McKinsey - maybe Trans Secy Buttigieg worked on it?) that showed beyond a doubt that the TSA fails in keeping weapons off airplanes. Yet somehow TSA persists.

Reading about all the mask rage incidents I’m in no hurry to fly anywhere. God I wish we’d invested in mass transit instead of airlines and Boeing 737 MAXs.

Expand full comment

Yes, I did barf a lot on airplanes (also in cars) as a kid. And it was traumatic. Still when I get on planes, I think I smell barf that isn't even there. But, hey! We got swag! But seriously: I agree with you assessment 100%. All airlines in this country are utter crap. I too have Kevlar in my gut (I did not know we had this in common -- must be a genetic flaw) and titanium in my ankle. I, too, get stopped with fair regularity despite the bucks I paid to jump the queue. I remember my experience in Miami airport where I spent no less than five hours waiting for a delayed, delayed, delayed, then finally CANCELLED flight. During the wait American (which really is the worst airline there is, in my opinion) told all 200 of us to change gates no less than four times, which was great fun for the elderly among us and the guy on crutches, only to finally tell us that there would be no flight and that my two choices were to take a slip of copier paper with a phone number to call for (nonexistent) hotel rooms, or to fly to another city in Mexico entirely at 11 pm at night to try to find my way to Mexico City or a hotel room there. After spending the night in an airport Best Western, booked by my worried husband from afar (Hotel room 150.00, taxi to hotel and back 30.00), I made it back to the airport only to be told that I'd be bumped from my re-booked flight at which point the only thing that got me to Mexico City was standing there weeping inconsolably while a woman from Mexicana Airlines saved my ass and put me on a flight. When I arrived, the government of Mexico welcomed us with armed soldiers who guided us to an area where our finger prints were taken and irises scanned, an unpredicted invasion of my identity that I only submitted to because the only alternative was unattractive: getting back on an airplane. Traveling by air is now a classist, abusive, invasive, sexist, and -- worst of all -- PTSD-provoking experience. Unless of course you're on a flight to Korea or something, at which point that treat you like that quaint old-fashioned thing that corporations used to care about: A valued customer. Great essay Claire.

Expand full comment

I dislike flying, but I can't say my experiences have been as awful as what Claire describes. I've got lots of metal parts too (but no Kevlar) and I usually get buzzed and patted down. Mostly I've found the TSA people to be polite and sensitive to the fact that their job requires them to invade people's personal space. The flight attendants have been maltreated by their employers for years -- and so have the pilots. So I try to be understanding of the stress under which they operate. I think it's important to emphasize that the bad treatment we receive as customers is the result of efforts by the airlines to squeeze every nickel they can out of our pockets, and they've made their employees the agents of their predation. I totally agree that regulation needs to be reimposed. When you take account of the deterioration in the quality of service, deregulation did not in fact make flying cheaper.

Expand full comment

Laurie Anderson once wrote a humorous script in which she talks about the difficulties of travelling through airport security with musical equipment, for example, Synthesizers with a name emblazoned on it like, "Atom Smasher", or "Mind Blaster". Never ever joke with airport security or any port security, 1: they resent protecting the country for wages less than the president gets for sitting on his fat *ss. 2: they really are suspicious minded people, and the more you try to hurry them, the more they think you are probably going to detonate a nuke

Expand full comment