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Airline Insecurity
I'm in Southern California, flying in today to speak at a conference next week. May as well spend the weekend with friends, so I popped in early. Since I live in a small town far from a big city, it always takes two flights to get anywhere: one on a puddle jumper to get to Denver, then on from there. Those little regional "commuter" turbo-props are loud, and I brought along my noise-canceling headphones to deal with it.
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The flights run under the United flag, but are operated by a small regional airline. It used to be run by SkyWest, which is a neat little airline, but recently it changed to Mesa; I guess Mesa underbid SkyWest. And as we're taking off -- the loudest part of the flight -- the flight attendant comes by and tells me I have to take off my headphones. I objected: I turned off the electronics. Not good enough: take them off, he says. No reason given. I've harped before on the ridiculous lengths "airline security" sometimes goes to; it doesn't seem to have gotten much better.
Naturally, on the second leg of my flight today, the flight attendants didn't even suggest I needed to take them off, let alone demand it. I have no idea whether Mesa has some sort of reason, or if the flight attendant was a little Napoleon. But it's Yet Another Reminder of how irritating it is to fly these days. You don't know what you can do, and you have to be afraid that if you talk back, you could be arrested on federal charges of "interfering with a flight crew". It's the institutionalization of the zero tolerance -- substituting stupid rules for common sense. Pathetic.
Update
There were no problems with me wearing the headphones on the way back -- neither on the United flight, nor on the return Mesa flight. Nor was there a problem the next time I flew out on Mesa, on my way to China (nor on the leg from Denver to San Francisco, nor the hop from there to Hong Kong).
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I haven't had time to read all the replies to this, but I felt I should say something to fellow parents on the issue of the child restraints. I was puzzled to hear that in the US this device is not approved, as I am a frequent traveler, having done the intercontinental journey to Europe numerous times, in some cases with my small children, and it has never been a problem. In fact most (non-US) airlines now offer such a device for children under 2 for takeoff and landing and make sure it is used. Its astonishing that everywhere else, they follow common sense, while in the US, they put children up to unnecessary risk because of stupid outdated rules!
Posted by: Dominik, Australia | October 12, 2007 9:49 AM
The next time I have to travel a long distance I'm taking the train instead of a plane. It may not be as fast but it sure has a lot more class.
Posted by: Lisa, Ontario | October 13, 2007 11:42 AM
I don't remember all the details, such as what airline we were flying on, but I did have an encounter that caused my wife and I unnecessary anger. While waiting for takeoff from the Sacramento "International" airport we had been bumped from our flight and had to wait four hours for another flight. I quote-marked international because all long distance flights from the State capitol are then routed to San Francisco before they actually go anywhere. Our wait time exceeded the drive time to a real airport. That's not the thing that incensed us.
When we did enplane we were seated in the rear of the flight with three small, unkempt and loud children in front. They screamed and climbed over and around the seats and even toddled around in the aisles without much oversight from their mother or the flight attendants. Not complaining to either mother or attendants but simply commenting on our un-envied situation, perhaps too loudly, brought three attendants to US threatening to have US removed from the flight for causing a disturbance. In retrospect we probably should have left and proceeded with actions against the airline and their employees, but I had to be in New York the next morning so I had little choice but to take what these women forced upon us. Never again.
Posted by: Samuel, Chico, CA. | November 27, 2007 7:45 PM