One Step Forward, Three Steps Back -

We have the perfect slogan that tops off this ‘annus horribilis’ year for flyers:

Passengers want to be badly treated.

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This is courtesy of the CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) who went on to say that people “don’t want to pay for comfort on-board.”

FlyersRights.org’s president, Paul Hudson replied, “Wow. It’s now on the record that the airline trade association admits passengers are badly treated!”

“If airlines offered passage in cargo, or on the wings some might do so, but not because they want inhuman conditions but because they either cannot afford more, or think the larger seat prices are a ripoff at several times economy class, or because larger seats are just plain unavailable. By such Let-them-eat-cake reasoning are revolutions born,” he said.

Which prompts today’s assessment of 2017’s significant airline passenger moments. And, unsurprisingly, most are pretty depressing, confirming what we all already knew: The year 2017 was pretty terrible year for air travelers.

The lowlight was undoubtedly United Airlines’ shocking passenger dragging incident. Others might include the rollout of Basic Economy, the cramming of more seats into rows amid record profits, the “calculated misery” strategy and crash test dummies breaking seatback video screens with their heads during crash simulations -foretelling an unpleasant fate for coach class passengers.

Highlights of 2017 include FlyersRights.org’s court victory in the fight to keep airline seats from shrinking and the national conversation it sparked concerning how airlines view their customers.

The IATA chief’s long diatribe against passengers ran the gamut from; the airlines should determine the “appropriate level of comfort or discomfort they want to provide” to; certain passenger rights laws are already “backfiring on passengers” and then condemning FlyersRights.org’s 3-Hour Rule.

Hudson responded, “There was no increase in flight cancellations when the 3-Hour Rule (4 hours for international flights) went into effect in 2010.”

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“I am challenging IATA to prove its assertions or apologize and retract its misstatement. This same IATA CEO is blaming passengers like Dr. Dao for mistreatment, calling them disruptive or air-rage passengers.”

“The airlines are not satisfied with the Patriot Act statute which makes ‘Inference With Flight Crew’ a federal felony and ‘Disobeying a Flight Attendant’ punishable by 20 years in prison. They want an international treaty giving airlines even more power over passengers,” he declared.

To be continued…