When Jet Blue Flight Attendant Steve Salter took the emergency route off the plane where he worked, he slid into the hearts of Americans everywhere. He is our hero because we are sick of each other and we hate air travel.
I guess, the terrorists win again.
Oh, not those terrorists. The 9/11 assholes only made getting to the airport and onto the plane a living nightmare. No, the true horror of flying could only have been brought to you by those evil forces bent on destroying everything good and decent in American life. I mean deregulation.
Like being able to deposit money in a local bank and know that it will stay in your own state to help foster growth and business there? Let’s deregulated that, because the folks at BofA are soooo much more helpful. Like being able to just call someone and get your phone fixed? Quick, deregulate that away. Like knowing that major institutions of finance are legally enjoined from taking us down the same road that led to the Great Depression? Let’s deregulate them. It’s working out great, right?
Air travel used to be sort of elegant and at least civil, if not civilized, until deregulation.
When I graduated from college with degrees in Theatre and Philosophy and no “good” marriage prospects, I did the only thing I knew to do. I went to New York. Where else to go with no actual employable skills? I saved up my money working at Target (it was call Richway in the before times). It took a little while, but I was able to salt away enough to pay for a couple of month’s on a friend’s sofa on West 44th and a coach airline ticket.
It could not have been a more lovely trip. My friends came to the gate and saw me off with hugs and tears. The flight attendants were lovely and helpful, making sure that I had a comfy trip, a nice dinner and that I arrived in New York refreshed.
It remains a treasured memory.
And it’s not like it was that long ago.
The airlines were “deregulated” in the mid 80’s and nothing has been the same since. An act of Congress ended the ironically names Civil Aeronautics Board because, as experience teaches us, we consumers always benefit when industry regulates itself.
Increased competition was supposed to afford us more and cheaper air travel options while opening up opportunities for the “little guys” in the industry.
Since then, airline travel is up to sardines-in-a-can levels but most airlines lose money like Banana Republics. Air travel has become an endurance test for passengers and the beleaguered air corps who fly us. Every year another merger forms the new largest airline in the world – so much for the little guys – and every year more passenger services are stripped away. With bankrupt airlines and slave ship passenger accommodations, apparently nobody benefitted from deregulation.
Add to this the dehumanizing and souls sucking security ordeal that simply boarding a flight now entails, and crashing seems the least of our fears of flying.
I heard a woman who’s running for Senate in Nevada say the other day that Government isn’t the solution, Government is the problem. The people are the solution. Two questions come to mind 1)If she thinks government is the problem why is she running for office? And 2) Who does she suppose the Government is if it’s not the people?
We have spent the past 30 years dismantling the country and selling it off piece by piece. I’m not sure how that makes it better. I look at places like Afghanistan and Somalia and think: We’ll they don’t have any government and their lives don’t look that great to me.
Then again they’re totally deregulated.
Eric Shaw Quinn 
Richway on Decker Blvd. near Kroger???
your blog was right on the money.. too bad the money “ain’t” worth the paper it is written on….i do think people need to regulate themselves more and be responsible for their own actions..
Eric, you are amazing. I wish you lived closer.
Ned Calver, Tim Gause, Lisa Beers, and myself have remained close and have started a reunion of sorts..it is sept. 11th at lake murray.. a four hour trip for us.. but worth the time for the gathering of many of us from all of the different clicks because now it does not matter.. well, get on one of those miserable flights and come!!!! I also wish you lived closer because we would love to hang out with you.. all of my gay friends are “taken” (my term for married).. anyhow.. your writing opens my eyes and my mind.. have a super weekend ..
Eric: I agree that air travel has become Greyhound in the
Sky! I see also that the majority of us live completely hand to mouth and we are controlled by so many forces and that in the end cooperation will be the only way to survive. I think that Stewardess man just got fed up with all the bitchy uncooperative rude people that most of us have become and maybe he needed a gooddamn cocktail ! Every time I relapsed into drugs I felt just like that man pulling the slide chord and jumping out of the plane. I have to stay nice and sober just to feed myself these days ….but boy do I love a good RELAPSE story! Obviously others do as well.
I would never go so far as to say that the government is the problem and that people are the solution; that’s a fast-track to Mad Max. What I think the senator [whoever she is], is meaning to say- that is, if she isn’t an anarchist- that the government is not so much for the people as it is for themselves, ie keeping their own jobs or what have you. I don’t know. I sort of see where she’s coming from. I mean, come on- when was the last time anyone got decent customer service at, say, the post office? They’re like Windows, those people!
Anyway, you are so right. Concepts of class and being civil; basically gone from companies. [It also makes me think of another post you did, “Manners”.]
I remember that Richway on Decker Blvd. too!
I also remember what fun flying used to be. I remember dressing nicely to fly, and how special it felt to walk through the airport amidst all the excitement in the air. Now whenever I fly, I’m all steamed up by the time I board the plane. My blood pressure starts to rise the minute we have to take our shoes off. And inevitably, I forget about the sunscreen or bug spray or mouthwash in my carry on, and when that $6 bottle of something I’ve purchased just for this trip is thrown into the trash (forget recycling!), it sends me right over the top. Once on board the plane, I can’t help but watch my fellow passengers attempt to cram ridiculous amounts of items into overhead compartments, while my little tiny carry-on is under the seat in front of me (sans mouthwash)… And I begin taking deep cleansing breaths (no doubt picking up all kinds of airborne nastiness), and count the hours I have left until this whole nerve-wracking experience is overwith.
But next time I fly, I will be thinking of the Steve Slater story . Thank you, Mr. Slater, for helping me regain my sense of humor about flying. Cheers!