Editor’s note: The following column is a satire.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has been in the news lately calling for Americans to bring civility back to air travel — encouraging us to trade our cold demeanors for respectful conversation, our ungrateful actions for neighborly support and our airport pajamas for suits and ties.
A noble goal, certainly, but he’s thinking too small.
We cannot have classy air travel without restoring the pillars of what made a polite society: complimentary in-flight cocktails, luxurious fine leather seating you melt into and the joy of chain-smoking cigarettes at 40,000 feet while trapped in a pressurized metal tube. If we want to truly relive the “golden days of air travel”, then, by God Almighty, we need to commit.
To begin, let’s talk about that legroom. Today’s modern planes offer the same amount of personal space as a Victorian-era rentable coffin, except instead of paying four pennies after a hard day at the factory, we are expected to pay hundreds of dollars for a similar experience.
If Duffy is demanding civility, he should demand airlines switch from using airborne cattle cars to the truly luxurious velvet-clad cocktail lounges typical of the Pan Am era. I imagine passengers would be much more courteous without having to undertake hour long battles with strangers over armrest real estate.
Speaking of cocktails, what happened to in-flight bottle service? When Delta Air Lines offered free champagne or Continental Airlines hosted an on-board tiki bar to serve tropical hors d’oeuvres and libations, there seemed to be little reason for passengers to consider assaulting the kid kicking the back of their seat. These 12 dollar plastic spirit shooters of the so-called “future” of air travel are clearly not doing the job of calming pre-flight jitters or stimulating mid-flight conversation.
And finally, the pinnacle of what used to make the United States a proud nation — smoking sections. I can remember back to the good old days when almost every restaurant had a smoking section, whether it be the local dive bar, Ruth’s Chris Steak House or IHOP.
There is nothing finer, more high-class, than segregating a metal tube with wings into “smoking” and “non-smoking” cabins. The hazy environment gave flights a cinematic ambiance. The sweet smell of tobacco eased the stress of turbulence.
Back when we were a proper country, United Airlines used to offer complimentary cigars on male-only “Chicago Executive Flights” for 17 years; seventeen years of service clearly shows success to me. This is clearly the kind of experience the American traveler is yearning for, even if they don’t know it yet. I’m almost willing to argue that the Federal Aviation Administration banned smoking and vaping to make the airport wayfarer miserable.
If Duffy is serious about reinstating class and dignity back to American air travel, these half-hearted suggestions of dressing nicer simply will not do. Restore the space between the cockpit and tail to its once courtly status.
We need hand crafted cocktails for every man, woman and child; branded ashtrays installed into velvet-lined, full-grain leather seats; and legroom to accommodate you, the missus and the mistress.
Air travel was meant to be the mode of the future, and it deserves all the fixings of high-altitude glamor. If we continue to treat ticketed passengers like prisoners, we can expect all decorum to be checked at the gate.
Thomas Bergeron is a 25-year-old graduate student from Baton Rouge.
