[doktagil]

You may be surprised to know that on February 15th United Airlines Flight 174 from San Francisco to Denver was held hostage for nearly an hour. No, it wasn't held up by Islamic terrorists, Chechen rebels, or even Occupy Wall Street protesters, but by the airline itself. Having over-sold and over-booked this particular flight, an all too common practice these days, the airline was desperate to buy off two passengers. After several failed attempts in the boarding area with $400 voucher offers, the ante was upped to $1,000 after everyone was boarded. Now, here's where the story takes a dark turn.

With no takers to give up their seats, flight attendant Leslie Ann makes the announcement that “the flight will not depart" until two people in the Economy cabin (I guess this demand only applied to the Second class travelers) give up their seats. I can only describe the mood as stunned silence as we sat there in disbelief that we would not be allowed to depart until two souls among us made the ultimate sacrifice. We thought this must be a joke, right? Nope, like a scene from a 1940s era movie, gate agents rushed on board and, like the Nazi Gestapo, demanded to “check our papers” (i.e., boarding passes) looking for likely victims. After several long minutes, and to the cheers of her Second class comrades, a woman arose and opted to take-one-for-the-team. However, she soon returned when she discovered she would have to remain overnight and depart the next day. Not to be deterred, a gate agent out of earshot of the rest of us, apparently upped the ante further, and she accepted their offer.

The flight was now nearly 40 minutes past scheduled departure and we still needed one more victim/volunteer. We wondered how long they would hold the flight and what was so important that a flight full of paying customers was prevented from departure. Was it because there were cancer patients who needed to travel for urgent treatment? Did parents have to rush home because of an illness of a child or other family emergency? If so, please make it known and you would most assuredly have volunteers in abundance. This certainly had to be a serious situation if the airline was going to inconvenience well over 100 passengers. And, what about those making close connections in Denver? We certainly were going to be nearly an hour late on arrival. Having been in that same situation many times before, I shared their anguish at the thought of missing a connecting flight. Although having already travelled for nearly a full day from Beijing, I felt fortunate that Denver was my final destination.

Finally, another young lady came forward from the rear of the plane to be acknowledged as a heroin by her Economy Classmates. Great, we would soon be on our way, and we would now know who truly needed to be on this flight. The first volunteer had had a center emergency exit row seat between a gentleman on the aisle and a deadheading Captain at the window. We observed a flight attendant insisting that the gentleman take the seat in the back of the aircraft that had been vacated by the second volunteer. He had obviously paid more for the privilege of sitting in an emergency exit row, but despite his complaints the flight attendant insisted that he give up his prime seat. After all, it was probably for a good cause. Perhaps a patient and her attendant, or a couple who needed to be close in a time of need.

Well, after nearly an hour delay, our two new passengers came aboard the aircraft. To our amazement, the first was a deadheading pilot who had made a shamelessly poor attempt to hide his true identity by removing the epaulettes on his uniform. He then unceremoniously shoved other passenger’s luggage aside in the overhead bin so he could get his suitcase in. By the way, prior to boarding I had been told by the gate agent that “all overhead bin storage was full”, so I must gate check my bag. I was given the exact same line leaving China, so this is apparently nothing more than a systemic fabrication. In fact, there was plenty of available space in the overhead bins on both flights.

Regardless, a few minutes later, the second priority passenger arrived. This time it was a purser in full uniform. Yes, a glorified flight attendant, who was given the emergency exit aisle seat that the paying passenger was forced to vacate. To make matters worse, one gum chewing male flight attendant and another female could not have been more obvious in their delight that they had succeeded in coercing paying passengers off the flight in favor of their company brethren. Even making sure they were given a bottle of water while the rest of us had to wait for in-flight service. To add further insult, the flight attendant was quick to remind those of us deplaning in Denver to remain seated so those passengers making connections could deplane first. She was completely oblivious to the fact that we all knew why we were delayed in the first place.

In the near term, my letter may not change any practices; rudeness and distain for the paying customers has become the norm for airlines in the United States and will likely only get worse. I’m old enough to remember why Braniff, Eastern, National, Pan Am (One and Two) went under. It was the same arrogance that is now infecting the Friendly Skies. One satisfied passenger becomes the ambassador for that airline. One dissatisfied passenger becomes the snowball-from-hell that turns into an avalanche of distain and spreads ill-will for that same airline.