Airlines Need to Get Sneaky

Lately, I fly a lot. I feel like I’m flying Jeff Pulver levels of a lot. And this has me thinking. Airlines: most of everything you do inside the plane needs reconsidering. Here’s my advice.

• Amtrak has somehow managed to figure out how to give me power for my laptop. Please, can you try? Add the expense on as a surcharge. (You’ll hear that last part a lot in this post).
• Don’t charge me for soda pop or cheese snacks. Just add $6 to my ticket, to everyone’s ticket, and give it to me. That’ll cut down in money fumbling time.
• This in-flight ad bull has to stop. I’m captive, but if you float down a television, do not pummel me with stupid ads, *or* if you’re going to do ads, do them about destinations, so that we learn something useful while accidentally receiving marketing.
• Please adjust flight attendant training for smart phones. If I turn off the phone part of my phone, I can still use the apps without risking the plane’s safety. Don’t have your attendants poking at me to shut it off just because it can also be a phone.
• Is there any way we can fix that “get off the plane” part of my trip? The amount of time between that bell ding and actually walking by the pilots to thank them for a non-bumpy landing seems to last forever. Isn’t there any kind of Disney people-in-line engineering that would fix this process? Tazers for slow people? At this point, I’d pay an extra 10 bucks for you to restrain people so I can just leave efficiently.
• Take the lead of airlines like Southwest and others (most recently, the flight attendant from Mesa Air) and really have fun with those pre-flight announcements. This guy had us all laughing and cheering all the way through his “in the event of an emergency, the floor lighting will be illuminated” speech. Laughing like you’d pay money laughing, I’m saying. Can you just try to liven that part up? We’d listen more intently.
• If the flight is a red-eye (like half my flights from the west coast to the east), could you not come on every few seconds to update us on things like our altitude, on our beverage choices, on your offers of rewards cards and the like? We pretty much know the beverage choices. I mean, you’re not making smoothies, are you? Shush and let us poor bastards sleep.

Okay, I’ve griped enough. Now it’s your turn. What else would you want to tell an airline about the travel process?

And what does this have to do with social media? Simple: I have a voice. I have a community. I have reach. ALL companies have to think about that. We are not silent. We are not complacent. We intend to influence.

The world is two-way.

Agree?

Speaking of sneaky: Las Vegas Sale: Air + 2 nights from $245 – Expires 10/20/08
(Finding great deals is sneaky).

Photo credit, Aaron Escobar