Charlier, really? Is the PreCheck line really a 1%/99% thing? First off, I m in the 99%. Second, the

Airlines are going out of their way to separate their top customers from the rabble that fills the back of their planes. In the old days, first-class passengers got bigger seats, full meals, free drinks and early boarding. They still do. But, now with new perks, hawaii classic car rentals some have separate hawaii classic car rentals terminals, seats that convert to beds, are excused from fees, allowed to change flights at a whim, can skirt TSA whole-body scanners and find themselves being chauffeured around the airport in Mercedes and Porsches.
This is in-your-face hawaii classic car rentals perk warfare that is adding to the poor customer service issues plaguing the airline industry. The common man is faced with airlines flaunting the special status of elite frequent fliers and the rich.
We see it in security lines. We see it when we march through first class on the way to the back of the plane. We see it when we wind through lay-flat seats to our 32-inch pitch. We smell it every time flight attendants pull the flimsy curtain between hawaii classic car rentals first and worse at meal times or when airlines are handing first class passengers chocolate chip cookies. We feel it when we have to fork out $150 or $250 to change a flight.
[A Delta representative] runs them down jet-bridge stairs, loads them into a $66,000 Porsche Cayenne S and drives them across the tarmac to their connecting flights. Changing terminals in a 400-horsepower luxury SUV takes but a couple of minutes, and customers bound up the stairs used by pilots and ground workers and slip into seats without riding trains, fighting crowds or waiting in crowded boarding lines.
Diamond members, who fly at least 125,000 miles a year, get priority over platinum (75,000 miles a year). The top 500 Diamond members get special highlighting on the sheets used by the drivers, who make a special effort to always greet them, even driving them to their car in an airport parking lot or a nearby hotel.
In Frankfurt, Germany, Lufthansa has built a totally separate terminal for their first-class passengers. Air France has done something similar. Perhaps having the elites treated specially out of sight of the normal travelers reduces traveler class envy.
Do you remember the last time you saw an airline commercial for travelers in coach (other than Southwest, JetBlue and some low-fare carriers which have only one class)? Each of the airlines touts their first class and business class products hawaii classic car rentals in as lush a way as possible. They celebrate the unattainable for most fliers.
Another place where the airlines rub the differential treatment of the elites in the face of the hoi-polloi is in the security lines leading up to TSA security checks. You see, the airlines control those lines (you see later why that makes a difference to TSA). The airlines have decided to allow their elite frequent fliers to move through a shorter and faster security line on their way to their TSA search.
hawaii classic car rentals Nearly all the airlines now allow well-heeled passengers to pay for the privilege of cutting ahead of the rest of us at the TSA checkpoint. At many airline checkpoints there are two lines. The long line looks like America; the short line is made up mostly hawaii classic car rentals of affluent white men.
Is this the future we Americans want: two lines at all airline security checkpoints, one for the privileged 1 percent and the other for the 99 percent who have to stand aside to let the people with lots of money pass? Alas, it appears that making economic apartheid formal in U.S. civil aviation is a bad idea whose time has come.
Once a passenger arrives at the TSA security hawaii classic car rentals checkpoint it would seem that the rich and frequent flier as well as the traveler in coach would be faced with the same security screening. Not so. If the airline frequent flier is traveling through one of the airports now running TSA s PreCheck program, they can go through security without taking off their coat or their shoes or taking their laptops out of their briefcases. In the meantime, the unwashed masses are faced with shuffling, barefooted hawaii classic car rentals or in stocking feet, through hawaii classic car rentals whole-body scanners and having their luggage pawed through.
How did this happen? What happened to the old TSA motto, "On our side of the line, everybody is equal." It was sacrificed by TSA to the airlines in order to get the special security lines. The airlines bargained hawaii classic car rentals with TSA to allow their frequent fliers to become automatic members of PreCheck based on their elite status. Hence, these PreCheck-passengers get a faster security line and a totally different, non-invasive security check. (Of course, TSA claims that PreCheck members are subject to random full-body scans, luggage checks and explosives screening.)
What about the rest of the traveling world that is not an elite member of the airline frequent flier program of the airline they are flying on that day? They are sore out of luck, unless they want to pay Customs and Border Protection hawaii classic car rentals (CBP) some moolah — about $100 — and go through a real background investigation. The CBP s Trusted hawaii classic car rentals Traveler programs (Global Entry, hawaii classic car rentals SENTRI, NEXUS) all qualify automatically for TSA s PreCheck program.
Elite fliers hawaii classic car rentals do not have to pay baggage charges. Elite passengers do not have to pay many change fees. Elite passengers do not pay seat reservation fees, for the most part. Elite travelers sit in quiet lounges with free WiFi, drinks and snacks.
America s airline travelers already have a bad taste in their mouths without this in-your-face hawaii classic car rentals elitism that the airlines (and now our government) practice. The lists in the paragraph before this are for the most part unseen by the common traveler. It is when the total difference in service is flaunted that the proletariat hawaii classic car rentals really feels second hawaii classic car rentals class.
Security checks are onerous and arbitrary. hawaii classic car rentals Airline tickets are filled with fees that the airlines make difficult to find and that they can not purchase at every point where airlines sell tickets. Customer service hassles abound when the airlines are more interested in hiding passenger rights than educating the flying public.
Is it any wonder that the common airline traveler begins to feel mistreated when he should be fill with wonder at being able to soar from one coast to the other in five or six hours. The airlines that once marketed sweat dreams are turning them sour.
Did you notice the difference in what these people are paying hawaii classic car rentals for their seats compared to what you and I pay? I should hope that if you pay 5-20 times more to get to the same place you would get some perks. What s the point of the article?
As for TSA, everyone complains about lines being long and taking too long. So TSA and the airlines devise a plan whereby experienced flyers who take perhaps dozens of flights a year get a special line and an expedited check. Now you complain that these experienced flyers who have traveled tens of thousands of air miles are not worthy of expedited treatment? They should wait behind a family of five who make once a year trips to grandma and have no clue about what they are to do in a security line?
Guys, it s the airline business. The flight will be miserable no matter what you pay. While we watch the first class tickets get called ahead of us and board, those of us in coach are often saying Truth is, frequent travelers will do anything hawaii classic car rentals to avoid taking a plane though many times, hawaii classic car rentals of course, you are stuck flying.
I have no problem with Frequent Flyers get special hawaii classic car rentals service . They deserve it, flying is not a pleasure. hawaii classic car rentals I do have a problem with the short shift COACH passengers get though. We, the consumer, the coach passenger can change that if we want. Several months ago I suggested a few NO FLY days; one person commented and that comment was a typical silent majority hawaii classic car rentals remark it wouldn t work . Well, it would work, If the back of the plane was empty do you think the airlines wouldn t feel the pain. I still think it s a good idea pick a date 3 months from now and DON T fly on that day; and then pick another day 2 months from that and don t fly. Go on strike!!!
Charlier, really? Is the PreCheck line really a 1%/99% thing? First off, I m in the 99%. Second, the line is usually a bit more melting pot than affluent white men. If the point of the TSA effort is security (and I m not saying it is!) then why not have PreCheck access for frequent flyers. Unless hawaii classic car rentals they are a particularly hawaii classic car rentals deep mole (in which case TSA ain t gonna find em either!), if someone flies enough to earn that loyalty status, wouldn t they have been checked enough to ensure that it is extraordinarily unlikely that they are a terrorist? Further, though hawaii classic car rentals PreCheck myself, I have been sent through the regular line at least 30% of the time when PreCheck is available. So I m getting my junk scanned hawaii classic car rentals regularly, much more often than most of those you classify as America given the frequency of my air travel. And as for the airline lounges, at least Delta s is not free, even to Platinum travelers. So if we hang out in them it is because we pay for the privilege (or mooch off colleagues who have!). Give me a break, Charlie. There s no story here!
First of all, Charlie, your implication that elite flyers don t pay change fees and get free lounge access with free WiFi is FALSE. I have been one of your 1% elite flyers on AA for the past several years, and I am not immune from change fees unless I buy a refundable ticket. Nor do I get free lounge access, unless I am flying internationally on a business hawaii classic car rentals class or first class ticket (in which case, I am paying $5,000+ for the privilege, so letting me in the lounge is the least they can do). Even once I m in the Admirals Club, I have the privilege of paying $9.95 for a few hours of WiFi.
Second, I don t get your criticism hawaii classic car rentals of PreCheck. You guys constantly harangue the TSA for subjecting everyone to their nonsensical security theater. For once, TSA does something that actually makes some sense it is a valid argument that very frequent travelers pose less threat to the system, because they re a known quantity and you complain because hawaii classic car rentals the 99% don t get to play. And by the way, it is yet anoth