United Replaces Unionized Baggage Handlers With Min. Wage Contractors, Things Instantly Fall Apart

[Tommymac]

46. The Airlines now suck up to the 1%.

The rest of us can go to hell as far as they are concerned.

Just wait until they implement economy minus later this year. Seriously.

Give us bigger seats! Fatter profits might follow

Christopher Elliott , Special for USA TODAY 6:02 p.m. EST November 23, 2014

"One of the most troubling travel stories of 2014 was a report that airlines are considering a new class of service — and I use the term "class" loosely — called economy "minus."
These seats would have even less legroom and fewer amenities than those found in a standard coach cabin. JetBlue gave everyone a little scare last week when it announced plans to move its seats closer together and start charging for the first checked bag, so we know it's not an abstract idea.

If "minus" isn't already here, it's coming.

But ask passengers what they want, and they'll tell you that while they love cheap tickets, they have no desire to be wedged into a seat with 28 inches of "pitch" (that's a rough measure of legroom) or to have to pay extra for everything. It's dehumanizing.
"I don't want to be tortured," says Judy Greene, a musician who lives in New York. Durnford King, a TV writer based in Santa Monica, Calif., wonders, "What's next, rolling passengers up in bubble wrap and packing them in like sausages?"

Here's a better idea: Instead of adding economy "minus," why not expand economy "plus" — the so-called "premium" economy class section that's almost identical to coach sections before airlines were carelessly deregulated by the federal government in the 1970s? Consumers support the idea, and airline experts say it just might work. Passengers would welcome a more spacious cabin.

"I want it to go back to the way it was," says Willa Mathison, who remembers flying before airline deregulation and is now retired in Renton, Wash. Flying in economy class, she says, is almost unbearable, and she can't imagine it getting any worse. "We have cut back on our travel just because it has become such a miserable experience to be crammed in an airplane," she says."