Slathering Passengers with Oil
I opened the paper today to discover that the traveling public’s old nemesis is back at it again. Les LeGroom has been an insidious presence in the airline industry for a long time but his influence is having an ever greater reach with a new rash of aircraft deliveries. Airlines are taking possession of airplanes that have same-size cabins as earlier ones but with the important distinction of having more seats crammed into them. Les has been up to this trick of squeezing humanity into tighter and tighter spaces for quite some time. Airlines have been hiring him as a key consultant ever since he left the sardine canning industry.
No one can discredit Les LeGroom by saying he lacks of ingenuity. The airlines cannot get enough of this guy’s ideas. He always delivers the goods and does it smoothly, such as when the removal of food galleys created hardly any upset among seasoned passengers. After all, this was seen as a positive public health move, the end of gray chicken a la king. A few more seats were tucked in these nooks as though they had always been there. So full of ideas, it is like Les never sleeps and of course, he expects the same from airline passengers. Another of his expectations may come as a bit of a shock though. Rumor has it that he is urging the airlines to consider cutting back on a significant percentage of lavatory space, to make room for even yet more seating. Why waste all that space on one or two uncomfortable thrones?
Even some high up airline executives are uncomfortable with this suggested direction. Just a few weeks ago, a copy of an airline’s internal memo mysteriously appeared on the desk of a travel magazine editor. Dismissing it as a joke, the editor sent me a copy which to his surprise, I gave far more credibility to than he would have dreamed. There is the occasional manager who doesn’t worship every inch of ground that Les LeGroom walks on. This memo was a leak about leaks, in which LeGroom suggested more research on the possible public acceptance of ATBs or Airline Travel Briefs which from what I could tell, equated with adult diapers. His argument was that many Chinese travelers use absorbent underwear as an answer to tight travel conditions; wasn’t it time for westerners to catch up?
State of the art seat cushioning is Les’ favorite claim to fame on the new aircraft. New seats are now designed to emulate the thin profile of the flip down LCD screens that are supposed to keep passengers glued in their chairs, mindless of their close quarters. Something tells me that the human body is not as adept at fitting into many of the prescribed folded positions and tilts of the new seating, despite the positive press the airline spokesmen are giving it. Sitting in my flexible desk chair and carefully enacting a written description of how the new seats can recline without disturbing one’s backyard neighbor, I managed to act up my sciatica and bloody my knee on the desk in front of me.
The axiom less is more has its limitations. In this case, Les is just plain less for consumers. His vision for the future is airport terminals that look and smell like bus stations, only with a heavier security detail going on. The odd thing with people is that when you really jam them together, there is often less civility and a lot more hostility. Of course, all this is subtly being pushed on to us over a carefully measured timeframe. It may take that new proposed boarding gate installation, the Sardine Oil Sprayer (acronym SOS), to bring about a real revolution.
(A Note to Readers: After an earlier publication of this commentary, I received an email from a certain L.L. who politely informed me that I had misspelled his name. Correction: Les LeGroom should read as Less LegRoom.)
Posted: July 4th, 2009 under Customer Service.
Tags: Customer Service
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