The Not-So-Friendly Skies -by Jane Everham
“What happened to my leg room?” I was trying to get a bottle out of the diaper bag to feed my infant during take-off, and I had to unbuckle, rise and squat in the aisle to do it. I reflected on this new era of air travel. We were in the last row, smack up against the wall of the lavatory, and our seats could not recline.
“When did they move the rows so close together? When did they create a row that couldn’t recline?” The plane was full, over-sold, so we couldn’t move to better seats. “Flying in the 90s is not what it used to be,” I grumbled. I had no idea.
Once upon a time, air travel was a special occasion, and people dressed up to board a plane. We had help checking in and assistance boarding, and we were served food and drink several times on a flight lasting more than two hours. Not so long ago, right after I badly sprained my left wrist, I had to use my right hand and left elbow to stow a carry-on into the overhead. No one came to my aid. Employees and passengers have changed and not for the better. The cataclysmic change occurred shortly after 9/11, but subtle changes started occurring after deregulation in the 80s.
I’ve lived through many changes in air travel. On my first flight, at age three in 1953, dressed in black patent leather Mary Janes and a lavender Chesterfield, I made the long trek across the tarmac to the plane stairs where the stewardess handed me a white cardboard box like you get from the bakery. “Here’s your box lunch,” she said cheerily. My mother tried to get me to notice the huge clouds out the window, but the iced cupcake inside the box was a bigger hit. That stewardess fawned over me during the flight, and I wore the wings she gave me the entire time I was in California, even on my bathing suit and pajamas.
Remember the rash of hijackings of commercial planes in the 70s? In response, the airlines employed Sky Marshalls, plain-clothes law enforcement officers who patrolled the airport and traveled on planes as ordinary passengers. They were armed and there to avert future hijackings or trouble. At the time people joked that you shouldn’t call a greeting to a friend named Jack in the airport, or you could find yourself hauled in for questioning. I think Sky Marshals are still there, but we don’t joke much anymore.
***.
Today, in 2018, flights are routinely oversold. We are frequently being asked to give up our seats for a special offer – the offers are bona fide and a good deal, if you have the luxury of getting where you are going hours or days late. It used to be free to check a bag and now there is a $25/bag fee. Consequently, passengers are carrying on armloads of “material goods” that they then try to cram under their seats or in the already bulging overhead compartment, prompting some airlines to charge for carry-ons. Once upon a time you were served a meal, included in the price of the ticket. Now you can buy an over-priced snack box . . . if you are desperate. On a recent flight I was charged $1.99, on my credit card (cash purchases are a thing of the past) for a soda and pretzels. In fact, in the time it takes to publish this essay, I wonder how many new changes will have occurred.
But I am adjusting. TSA is never going away. Shampoo will forever be sold in 2.5 oz. bottles to make it through security. More and more you can leave your shoes on, but the leg room is not returning. Despite all, I vow to keep traveling, more frequently now, at least for the next many years before the airlines further ratchet down the passenger space . . . maybe, remove the seats completely, stand us up and give us all subway-style hand grips to hang on to.
Jane worked for 34 years in the public schools in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Fort Collins. After retirement in 2011, she has spent her time volunteering with the Larimer League of Women Voters, Foothills Unitarian Church, and progressive politics. She loves to have lunch with friends, reads voraciously, and travels.
