The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Accommodate: meaning “made fitting.” Whether it refers to changing something to suit someone’s wishes or providing someone with something he needs,accommodate typically involves making something fit.

Re-accommodate: well, in the plummeting stock values of United Airline these days, the meaning is a little less clear. I guess it might mean cleaning the blood off that recalcitrant passenger who was dragged literally kicking and screaming off the plane when United decided they needed his seat for their employees and letting him back on the plane, maybe in the cargo hold with other dangerous potential explosives.

I’m the last guy in the world who thinks the customer is always right. I think my clients ought to be given as much courtesy as possible, but c’mon, you’ve met folks who not only aren’t right, they’re jerks, they’re insufferable, they’re the ones that should be thrown off the plane. In mid-flight preferably. But United Airlines, let’s get honest here, they no more think the customer is always right than the Sunnis think their Shi-ite neighbors need a Welcome Wagon when they move in. United, and most of the other mega corporations who fly the post 9-11 skies, don’t give a rat’s patootie about their customers’ comfort, they care about the bottom line, not my bottom crammed into their ridiculously narrow seats. You ridden on a Greyhound lately? It’s no dreaded Mexican bus with the chickens and the kids on the roof anymore, it’s cushy, it’s comfortable, it’s deluxe compared to my experience as air freight.

And that bottom line they worry about? Deduct about $ 1 billion from that and see if the CEO still thinks re-accomodation means anything in the real world. If I were him, I’d look up re-assignment. Without the stock bonuses and the golden parachute. The price of arrogance can be plenty high.

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United Airlines, always on the lookout for a good publicity story to promote their quality service, had a passenger forcibly removed from his overbooked seat. Judging by the viral videos, he didn’t seem agreeable to have someone else take his place. Probably had somewhere to be, people to see, maybe a meeting to attend, something that made him reluctant to leave the plane and hope United would get him a seat later that day or next week.

United stated they’d asked nicely for volunteers but no one came forward. So … what else is an airline to do but grab someone by the feet and drag them to the front exit door in front of all those other overbooked passengers who, if they were the thinking types, might see themselves in a similar position. One fellow passenger gave full throated support: “Way to go!” Course, he was rooting for the air marshals, not the fellow who might have been him. Probably thought the guy being dragged away was a terrorist.

I fly United occasionally. And yeah, they overbook all the time. They ask if there’s anyone who would take a voucher and fly another time, free flight or a pretty good discount. Great for folks with no family, no job, no hurry to get anywhere in particular. But for those of us who need to be someplace, well, I wouldn’t want my name chosen at random by the desk jockeys for United. And it does make me wonder, how did they choose this man to drag off? Alphabetical name place? Last passenger to book, other than the ones overbooked? Profiling? Name pulled from a hat? Eenie Miney Mo?

Personally, dragging a passenger off a plane seems pretty consistent with airline policy these days. Crammed overhead cargo, narrower seats, no leg room, extra fees for … well, everything, more and more delays, lost luggage, smaller options. I haven’t flown a friendly sky in a long long time. Next time, though, I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that we aren’t dragged by the feet off the flight we booked and paid for. And to the guy who yelled Way to Go, let’s hope it’s you next time when they need a ‘volunteer’ to give up an overbooked seat.

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