[veritas01]

I understand what you are saying. I participate in a number of travel forums and there are always people with a single sided point of view.
However, I think airline customer service has disappeared since 9/11. Now I understand with the threats of terrorsim, passenger rage, worries about job security, the "you owe me" mentality of people who think buying a ticket entitles them to abuse the help, and the current economic situation make working for an airline a scary proposition. I would be in a bad mood all the time. But that is why I don't work for the airlines.

I also feel that what Reservations/Customer Service tells you as a company policy should be observed at the gate. I don't think there were others asking to pre-board so it was not a matter of too many passengers making the request and I was clearly not trying to jump the line to get into the plane earlier for my own comfort as I stood there with the carseat in one hand and a baby in the other. Pre-boarding me was the most sensible and accomodating thing to do. As I said...I worked as fast as I could to get the seat properly in place and as a result I tied up the aisle for a couple of minutes. Totally unnecessary.

I only travel a few times a year and almost always on American. I have noticed that their gate staff and flight attendants have become less friendly and far more prone to acting annoyed and angry. It is like the power has shifted from the passenger to the flight staff. They act like you should be lucky you are on the plane so stop whining and shut up. Good advice in a lot of cases but at least treat me with some respect.
I have to partially agree that passengers have become commodities treated more like freight than people.

American delayed my flight 12 hours in July to Buenos Aires. They lied to the passengers by telling them our plane had mechanical problems. In actuality they gave our plane to another international flight that was indeed having mechanical problems. That blantant dishonesty and the treatment of passengers really has me turned off on American. But....and 11 hour flight is a lot better than the alternatives....you can't drive, you can't walk and while you could take a boat you need a couple of months to get there...so flying it is.