Flying The Friendly Roads
Hate air travel? We've got just the thing.
The average American has flown so many miles and had so many awful experiences in the skies that they are numb to it all. It is rare for airlines to come up with a genuinely novel way to make life worse for their customers.
It’s a mature industry, after all, and 99% of the airlines’ efforts are now spent on fine-tuning the most important sector of their business (in-flight credit card offers). But we’d be fools to count them out—they’ve been harassing customers for pennies since before you were born, and they’re never going to stop looking for that extra inconvenience. That’s why they’re them and you’re you.
Witness the New York Post’s1 recent article, American Airlines passengers shocked to learn their ‘flights’ were actually bus routes: ‘There’s no plane’. This is 100% real: passengers booked a ticket from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois. They showed up to the airport, which is frequently a sign that you are going to fly on an airplane. They went through TSA security. They walked to their gate. They walked out of the gate onto the tarmac. They boarded a bus, which only flies through the air when someone has made a major mistake. And then the bus left the airport and drove them to Chicago.
Apparently, this has been going on since 2018, through a company called Landline, “which American Airlines describes as ‘a premium motor coach experience.’” Isn’t that delightful? Imagine going up to the gate agent in a fit of apoplectic rage and complaining that they are making you ride a bus, and the gate agent just gives you a puzzled look and says “bus? Surely you’re not referring to the premium motor coach out there?” I am in favor of second chances and I don’t think that the criminal justice system is the right tool for all offenses, but I feel that the person who coined the term “premium motor coach” should be sentenced to ride a premium motor coach from Key West to Anchorage.
At first, the most offensive part of this was the idea that passengers had to go through security to ride a bus, but I’m inclined to agree: if you’re going to tell a bunch of people who thought they were about to take a flight that it’s time to get on a bus, it is probably for the best that they have been checked for weapons.
“American Airlines said the service operates “just like a flight would,” short of actually being a flight or arriving at destinations in a timeframe consistent with air travel.” To be fair, this is 100% true, and I’m surprised that they would admit it—a typical flight these days is exactly like riding the bus.
Still, it’s a sad marker of where we are that customers just have to take it on the chin when this kind of smirking corporate hijinks occurs. Of course, we have to think. I just assumed that the transportation I purchased from an AIRLINE was going to involve AIR TRAVEL. That’s on me. Stupid.
Notes:
Why did I write this? Companies pretending that transparent cost-saving measures that make life for customers worse are actually good and beloved by customers is one of my favorite genres (see: Target locking up toiletries).
What I’m reading: Just finished Tilt by Emma Pattee, a novel about one woman’s attempt to reunite with her husband after a gigantic earthquake rocks the northwest. Funnier than anticipated!
There are some legendary newspaper mottos: “All The News That’s Fit To Print”; “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” etc. But I’ve always had a soft spot for the Post’s: “We recap TikTok videos!”