The Only Way to Fly Those Friendly Skies

Whenever I come back from an extended series of airplane trips on several different carriers, as I have this week, I am reminded anew that, although the airlines do a creditable job--I’m always afraid some day they’ll get like the railroads and discover it’s a great deal more profitable, and a lot less trouble, to move goods and animals than people--there are areas that need attention.

The first thing that comes to mind is a dress code. Now, I’m not one to advocate that air travel requires a three-piece suit or shoes that lace or that women should wear a shawl or mid-calf skirts, but it does seem that some minimal standards could be enforced.

For instance, I think--well, let me tell you of an experience I had in London once. I was sitting in my seat, awaiting takeoff for a polar flight to L.A., when an international traveler got on board wearing dirty shorts, a tank top, thong sandals and nothing else--unless you count the gold chains and the three cameras he had slung across his chest.

I looked at this apparition and thought, “If he sits next to me, I’m getting off and taking a boat.”

Being trapped in a seat next to those hairy legs and sweaty armpits for the next 12 hours would have been the equivalent of holding lighted cigarettes to my feet throughout the flight.

If the KGB ever wanted to get anything out of me, all they would have to do is just move this guy in a cell with me and say he was going to stay a week. I’d tell them anything they wanted to know.

Fortunately, he went elsewhere, hopefully beside some guy who had a less sensitive set of olfactory nerves.

But why couldn’t the airline tell this guy to go home and put on a shirt and slacks, that this was an airborne living room, not a gym? The airlines always ask you if you want an aisle or a window seat in a smoking or a non-smoking section; why can’t they offer you your choice of seat companions?

And while they’re at it, why can’t they do something about those people who seem to be moving three rooms of furniture or the entire contents of a warehouse from coast to coast when they board a plane?

You know whom I’m talking about, those passengers who get on carrying everything but a live chicken and the stove to cook it on. Some flights look more like a Tijuana bus than a jet plane.

The airlines remind us that carry-on luggage must be such that it can be stowed beneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartment But they don’t say how many seats in front of them or how many overhead compartments You find out when you get on late and try to stow your own truckload of essentials there

Americans hate to check things They get on board carrying everything from a statue of Beethoven to the kitchen sink You can see them staggering through airports with crisscrossing straps from suit bags, duffels, hatboxes, beer coolers, a year’s supply of canned goods and a portable hi-fi the size of a small locomotive

They used to make you pay for overweight in this country And in Europe, they made you weigh the carry-on luggage as well as the checked But of late, people get on carrying a load of home furnishings Bekins would hire three men and a truck to move across country

Whoever said, “Bad news travels fast!” never took many flights Our plane to Louisville the other day was three hours late leaving LAX To this day, nobody who was on that flight knows why--with the possible exception of the pilot

We sat on the ground for an hour even after boarding the aircraft, but there was not a peep from the flight deck Those guys are full of information in flight They love to tell you that if you look out of the right side of the aircraft you can have the thrill of seeing the skyline of Topeka They wake you out of a sound sleep to look at a dot on the horizon that is Hastings, Neb

But, do any of the sweltering, seat-belted customers find out why Flight 18 is not taking off, a matter of considerably more interest than the whereabouts of Topeka? Is it a bomb scare? Is the wing coming loose? The pilot oversleep?

Finally, there was the passenger clerk who makes all-pro in my book. After waiting in line for 20 minutes, I was informed that the flight was full, there was no room.

“Wait a minute!” I told him. “I got this reservation on the 13th! Four weeks ago!”

He looked at me haughtily. “A reservation is not a seat,” he said.

Now, that is world-class chutzpah, you have to admit. In fact, I would like the airline to adopt that as its motto instead of the internationally famous one it does have.

“A reservation is not a seat” is one of the ringing declarations of prose in our history. It ranks with the best of Patrick Henry.

In fact, it ranks right up there with Commodore Vanderbilt’s contribution to thoughts to live by: “The public be damned.”