The Montreal Crash – My take on it.

I work in the Aviation Industry, and have come to the conclusion that Passengers are the worst part of it.
They hear weekly about how United is in bankruptcy, and all the
airlines are paying record high gas prices (and are paying them at the
pump themselves – last week, I put gas in my car, and the guy before me
put in !!$95.00!! in gas. *shudder*), but when a coalition of 5
airlines gets together and raises ticket prices a paltry $10, they
exodus to whichever airline isn’t being a “team player”. They’ll
continue to do this until they collectively cut the throat of one of
the major players (and their own throat in the process), and then the
remaining airlines will be able to raise the ticket prices $50 or $100,
and there won’t be squat the flying public can do about it.
(TIP: If you do any flying in the future, don’t pick the cheapest
flight – help yourself in the long run – pick the one that’s $20 more,
and skip the pizza this week.)
Then they get to the airport, they go into a stupefying daze.
If they were in a foreign All You Can Eat Buffet Restaurant, they’d
probably look around, see how other people were getting their food and
then proceeding to a table and eating it.
When they come to the airport, however, they just look around in a
fog…and forget that there are 3.5 million other people who do this
process every year successfully, and (typically) 100,000 people that
they could follow, and insist on doing it themselves…wrong.
When they approach the Metal Detector, the screener recommends that
they take their shoes off, they look back at the screener and say
“These shoes?” (Nooooo, the shoes in your checked luggage, sir…)
Or they just walk up to the Metal Detector, with their laptop case in
hand, wristwatch on wrist, cellphone in pocket,
etc….smiling…without so much as a GLANCE at the 45 other people on
the other lanes who are busily taking off all their jewelry, taking
laptops out of bags, children out of strollers, etc.
Then, they get out to the concourse, and break things. Random things, routinely.
Someone please explain to me how you shatter the screen of a $5000 30″
LCD Monitor “Accidentally”…when it’s mounted 6’2” off the ground?

They get to the gate, and yell at the gate agent because they don’t
like their seat assignment. You know, the seat they PICKED OUT
THEMSELVES when they were buying that ticket for $10 less?

They don’t like the fact that they have to spend $11 at an airport
restaurant buying their own lunch, because the airline can’t afford to
put gas in the plane, much less feed the passengers inside for the cost
of the ticket. So they take their time eating it in the food court, and
have to RUN to catch the plane before it leaves…or they miss it
entirely, and yell at the gate agents again because they missed it and
now Aunt Bea will be stuck at Chicago Midway an extra 2 hours waiting
and wondering, because Aunt Bea believes that cellphone will give you
brain cancer.
Finally, they make it onto the plane, and there are 294 other people on
this plane, and only 10 cabin crew. 29.5:1 ratio. Waiters and
Waitresses should have it so good…but, nobody tips for getting good
service on an airliner. They just expect it.
After a rough bumpy ride, and a full on missed approach, the plane finally lands, and the passengers cheer…momentarily…
Then the plane exits the runway and breaks apart. The Crew do what
they’ve trained for years to do. Get 312 people off a burning plane
alive. The do that quite successfully, and professionally.
As it turns out, though, in this day of know-it-all passengers, one of
the pax has popped an escape chute that is over a small ravine, leading
to a 20′ drop-off from the end of the Big Yellow Slide…so one of the
crew blocks the exit…and the World Media sure hears about THAT…
(Fact: United had a small engine fire at DIA…that DFD put out – but
the magnesium relit. The order was given to pop the chutes, and some
passenger took matters into his own hands and popped a slide off the
wing RIGHT OVER THE FIRE!)
SO, after all this…we just hear about how “smug and unhelpful” the
crew was… Can you imagine it? Outnumbered 30:1 by morons, and you
save them all…all you hear is how ungrateful they are for it because
you weren’t the stewardess in “Airplane”… “Buh bye…thank you….BUh
Bye…Thanks…watch your step…buh bye….”
Then again…it WAS Air France…the national carrier of a Nation that
just sort of has that reputation for being smug and unhelpful and
all…
*DOH*