Degrading cattle-car economics

It’s 3:38 a.m. Texas time, and Polimom has been awake for two hours – because it’s 9:38 in London, and evidently my sleep-brain missed the plane out of Gatwick. I’m hoping it’ll catch up to me sometime this weekend, perhaps delivered by an airline flunky with abject apologies for having shipped it to Singapore.
I hope they make that delivery soon (preferably today!), but until they do, Polimom’s likely to be stuck making posts in the middle of the Texas night.
Not that I have great faith in what the airlines will do with my sleep-brain. They certainly aren’t handling much else very well, and Polimom has a bone to pick with them about how they’re treating their customers. Specifically, Polimom’s unhappy with the treatment of coach passengers – those of us who book the lowest fare because we confusedly suppose that we will be able to survive the 9 square inches of personal space and legroom for 10+ hours, and still be treated with respect.
Not that I’m advocating for more room. Polimom understands the economic need to pack those bodies as tightly as possible. What I do not understand is the accompanying attitude that people traveling in coach can be safely treated as disposable commodities. Evidently, economy passengers are… well… cheap scum.
When Polimom and Adorable Child booked their flight, the airline allowed us to choose seats for the flight from Houston. However, we could not get seat assignments for the return trip from Gatwick ten days later. The reason (we were told) was some mysterious “taking over of seat assignments” by Gatwick’s airport security. Polimom and her nine-year-old would have to take their chances on the other end of the trip, and hopefully they’d be able to sit together… but no guarantees, sorry.
No doubt you’ll be shocked to learn that Polimom wasn’t pleased by this, and when we arrived at the Houston airport, I set out to unravel (and rectify) the knotty problem.
Lo and behold, it was easily solved, by the expedient, humiliating, and infuriating technique of pretending to the computer that we had paid more than we actually had. The agent – an experienced and sympathetic person – temporarily changed our fare to something higher, and the coach-class seating chart was suddenly our playground!
Polimom and Adorable Child chose seats, and the helpful agent changed our fares back down to the slimy, unloved lower price. The problem, she said, was our “cheap” seats.
Does this smack of elitism to anybody but me?
Now, one might think this problem is somehow limited to this particular airline. Nope! In fact, we ran right up to the deadline when making our reservations because we searched endlessly (and fruitlessly) for an airline that would allow us to assign seats for the return. Apparently, they are all doing this! That is, in fact, the only reason I’m not naming the airline with which we traveled.
Polimom says this is NOT okay. I should not have to pay $3600 (or more) for the privilege of knowing I’ll be able to sit with my child on an international flight – or any flight, for that matter. This is not a matter of wanting to sit in first class (or the euphemistic “business class”). It is merely a question of personal dignity.
We should not be penalized – and then lied to – for not paying top dollar for an extra 36″ of personal space, and this particular blog entry is going in an email to the several airlines with whom we interacted for this trip. While Polimom doubts the practice will cease on the basis of my blog and email, one has to try.
However, knowledge is power… and now you know.