ALL ABOARD
"All Aboard!" Those are the words I may soon be hollering to my family as we depart on our next cross-country trip. The chaos and strip-searches of the airline terminal left behind for the relative doldrums of a train station.
Since de-regulation, the airlines have been in a downward spiral. Sure, a spiral that occasionally floats a bit, lifted by the fleeting wind of a huge federal bailout, but, a spiral nonetheless. Indeed, Southwest Airlines, I believe, still holds the honorable distinction of being the only airline in the history of American aviation to turn a profit from day one. Even through, and during the aftermath of, 9/11. Ample demonstration that it can be done, but with the caveat of serving only satellite airports and serving, not peanuts, but a single peanut. Still, I love Southwest. They are on-time and maintain a stellar safety record.
Sadly, all of us have to travel to places that require employing the transportation services of many other airlines. Here, the always-full comedy-well is brimming, no, spewing, over with a new generation of material. For years, comedians of all stripes have had "hey, what about those airlines..." bits. Usually centered around the comfort of the ride, the graphic description of airline food, the flight attendants, the delays and so on. Thanks to American Airlines, as of last week, there is an entirely new angle of "Flying the Friendly Skies" to analyze. How and Where to store your dead while travelling by air.
Days ago, a passenger on an American Airlines flight, returning home from Haiti, died on the flight after a series of strange events. Carine Desir was complaining of shortness-of-breath and had asked for oxygen. According to her cousin, Antonio Oliver, a flight attendant twice refused her request for oxygen as Carine pleaded "please don't let me die." After passengers became agitated, the attendant contacted the cockpit and was advised to give the passenger oxygen from a portable tank. When that was tried, the tank was empty. At this point, said Carine's brother Joel Desir, they tried again using another tank. A doctor who was on board the flight tried CPR, but the second tank was empty as well. Meanwhile, the pilots had turned course to divert to Miami, the closest airport where they could land. Joel watched in horror as his sister died in front of him. The doctor pronounced her dead, they dragged her body to the aisle in the unoccupied First-Class section, and covered her with a blanket. The aircraft turned back on-course to continue to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Peanuts, anybody?
It's hard to no where to begin, but one place would be that I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that those tanks that were empty are the portable tanks for the flight attendants to use in the event of an emergency, like a rapid-decompression, that could leave you unconscious in moments were the passenger oxygen masks to fail. The flight attendants wouldn't make it past the coffee pots in a pressure-related emergency. Also, the turn to back-on-course, schedule trumping all, is a cold reminder of the airline "dollar-value" that is applied to your cute little tush. It forces us all to look at our fellow passengers with that jaded eye that imagines them as possible stowable-luggage. "If I can snuff the guy in 3-C, I'll have the window, plus room to take a snooze...". Please stow your dead neatly in the overhead compartment.
I used to marvel, when watching the HBO series "Deadwood", at the perils faced by those who traversed the country in horse-drawn wagons in the late 1800's. Danger lurked everywhere, "road-agents" who would rob you and slit your throat, the sheer endurance of the ride, the weather, the absolute uncertainty that you would ever reach your destination in one piece, if at all. Suddenly, it seems like a doable option rather than a far-fetched analogy.
|