By Felicia Knight
There’s no denying that travel on most U.S. air carriers brings out the worst in all of us. We’re not proud, but there it is.
Admit it. You’ve seen the family with the screaming child in the boarding area for your flight and thought, “Please, please, please, don’t let them be seated near me.” Or you’ve cursed the kiosk and paid the extra $18 to $25 dollars to get into Group 1 boarding in the hope of snagging some prime overhead space for your roll-aboard. Or maybe you’ve even kicked the seat in front of you as the occupant “reclines” the full three inches, shoving your tray table into your thighs.
The frustrations of being herded, cheek by jowl, with hundreds of other equally frayed, tired, and tortured travelers have resulted in recent years in an increasingly surly flying population.
In an effort to diffuse some of this anger and restore a degree of civility among travelers, American Airlines has launched a new PR and marketing campaign: The World’s Greatest Flyers Fly American. Part of the campaign is devoted to showing off American’s amenities such as fully reclining seats in Business or First Class. But a larger part of the campaign is aimed at those of us sweating it out back in the cheap(er) seats.
According to American Great Flyers are: “…just great people—people that do the right thing at the right time. People that care about others, people that are considerate, kind…” Great Flyers “…like babies, but bring noise cancelling headphones…” Great flyers “…make the best of their situation, no matter where they’re sitting.”
In other words, Great Flyers take in stride the oversold planes, the middle seats when they booked a window, the howling children who’ve been up for 16 hours because the flight was delayed. Great Flyers just don’t mind being moved like cargo, paying for pretzels, or riding cross-country with their knees under their chins.
The campaign is internal as well as external. Apparently American wants its employees to be nicer, too. Speaking to the New York Times, Fernand Fernandez, American’s vice president of global marketing, explained his company’s effort to raise the civility bar. “We really wanted to take the tone of ‘It’s really you.’ It’s you the travelers and you the employee who kind of elevates the entire mood. Let’s move that conversation from us and turn it onto them and how they really move us forward in creating a much better experience.”
As in any bad relationship, the offender is making sure we understand, “It’s not me, it’s YOU.”
While airlines have been busy shrinking seat size, and finding new fees for customers to pay, passengers have become increasingly testy.
It’s good that the airlines have noticed. What’s confounding is that American sees the solution not in giving people a little more room, or allowing them to check their bags for “free,” but in trying to teach them a lesson in good manners.
American gets points for acknowledging that the flying experience these days is, for the average coach passenger, a bad one. We don’t excuse rude behavior on the part of travelers and will always applaud any effort to raise the level of human interaction. But American Airlines is putting the burden of improving that experience squarely on the backs of its customers. We wonder how much extra they’ll have to pay for the privilege.