News and notes from around the interweb:
- Former Miss Teen USA says that when she flies Delta first class out of LA, she gets asked if she’s sure she’s in the right check-in line. On the other hand, I never get asked..
As an airline whose hub is ATL & I’m sure has a fair amount of BIPOC customers I would expect for your staff to be better. I fly @Delta One often. I’m not in the mood to be questioned by your staff about my check in process when the white passengers traveling alongside me aren’t.
— Kamie Crawford (@KamieCrawford) April 19, 2023
- Actually no, they often don’t. (And this is not limited to American.)
@AmericanAir y’all don’t clean up between flights no more? pic.twitter.com/I1FuVkU9HR
— MicahTron (@micahtronsf) April 19, 2023
- I wouldn’t stay in this room at Marriott’s Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin.
@stef.228 This was my expericene at Walt Disney World’s Swan & Dolphin Resprt back on March 11-12 2023. It was filty and we found a bug on our bed 🤢🥴 DO NOT RECOMEND STAYING HERE! #swandolphinhotel #waltdisneyworld #disneyworld #disneyworldorlando #horriblehotel ♬ original sound – Estefany 💋🧿 - Passenger does full body workout in the middle of the American Airlines-British Airways Chelsea Lounge for first class passengers.
- The Department of Justice is divorced from reality in their current anti-trust cases. They oppose the American Airlines-JetBlue tie-in ‘because JetBlue is a disrupter, and it’s important not to let them become co-opted by a legacy airline.’ Meanwhile they oppose JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit because ‘JetBlue is a status quo airline and it’s important not to let the price disruptor Spirit become co-opted.’
Meanwhile here’s an actual, real world example of a customer taking it on the chin because of the American-JetBlue Northeast Alliance. They sell tickets on a route, then swap out which airline operates the route, and refuse the accommodate the customer on the other airline,
Redeemed points a few weeks ago for BTV-JFK-ORD in mid-June. Received email today to the effect that a schedule change had blown up my connection, but when I called up the record locator on Manage Trips the screen looked like it’d had a stroke; my BTV-JFK was now running one hour later, but no onward flight was suggested.
In agent chat I learned that starting in June JFK-ORD is covered after 600am by AA metal only, and TrueBlue redemption flights cannot be rebooked onto AA metal — even when JetBlue causes the disruption, even when JetBlue markets a particular AA service, even when there’s no alternative.
I was given no option but to cancel. And casting around on the website I see that effective Tuesday 6 June, it is impossible to travel on points BTV-ORD.
- Report that supervisors have to write up 3 flight attendants per week at American Airlines
- Some American Airlines ConciergeKey members are being invited to golf with a member of the Dallas Cowboys.
There are a material number of Blacks flying first class on US airlines these days. I think few gate agents — many of whom are minorities themselves — would jump to the conclusion that a Black person didn’t belong in a first class boarding line. That said, humans are humans, and if you were young, Black, female and dressed casually, I could imagine that some agents — likely to want to help — might think you were in the wrong line. Everyone, to some extent, behaves according to stereotypes. I know I was occasionally “questioned” when I was young and, unusually for my age, doing “luxury” travel. Better not to have a chip on your shoulder and just roll with it.
chopsticks, your view is out of date and unacceptable in modern society. It is no longer tolerable to “just roll with it.” Injustice must be fought. Black people face countless acts of prejudice daily, and to “just roll with it” would be to extend the status quo of systemic racism.
I have never been questioned in any priority line, other than the occasional agent politely asking “First Class?” and me affirming “Yes” without showing any documentation and that being the end of a very brief interaction. That is a privilege that all eligible travelers deserve to enjoy.
To resign and say “humans are humans” is to reject the human capacity for improvement.
@”Flight Attendants Have Low IQs”
There is no “injustice” there is just the perception of it by people indoctrinated in an oppression delusion.
Stayed at Dolphin numerous times, this video is dead on. We have also had no shower curtain and a closet door fall off on us. Most common is hair ties under tables and grey dusty areas that weren’t vacuumed around furniture.
@Johnny please you’re making me think of a horror show at an SFO hotel which gladly I can’t remember the name of, and Motel 6 in my party years. Stop. I can’t deal with hotels now thinking of the grime and germs. How do cabin crew do it?! Mind over matter for sure, but jeez
Ageist, sexist and racist prejudices do come into play when it comes to some people presuming a traveler is not entitled to premium cabin check-in, priority boarding and even taking or keeping their own seat in the premium cabin.
Sometimes these prejudices are operationalized by the airline or airport workers or government employees at airports. Sometimes these prejudices hit travelers because of other travelers.
A lot of people don’t really internalize the line about “don’t judge a book by its cover”. People also tend to judge people as being “in the wrong place” based on things like attire, language/accent/speech style and other behavioral indicators, and that hits travelers too.
There is an injustice in being subjected to racist, sexist and ageist prejudices.
If a “brown” or “black” person is a lot more frequently being asked to have their bags searched than when that same bag is being transported by a “white” person, that is an injustice and has implications for personal development, health and societal well-being.
Racism and apologists for racist profiling — and an unwillingness to acknowledge injustice toward individuals subject to even petty humiliations —make the world a worse place than it would otherwise be.
“Racism and apologists for racist profiling — and an unwillingness to acknowledge injustice toward individuals subject to even petty humiliations —make the world a worse place than it would otherwise be.”
God, I’m so sick of people spewing this crap. Life isn’t fair and that goes for all of us. Deal with it and stop the woke whining already.
When approach nearly any “specialty” line at the airport (preferred, first class, Clear Pre-Check) I am always questioned if there is a agent there monitoring the line. I fall into at least two groups that COULD perceive this as an equality issue. I see it at people doing their job to prevent people from entering the wrong line and mucking up the works.
That said, @chad, it’s funny how people like you claim that perceptions of oppression by marginalized groups is “delusion” yet many like you clutch your pearls crying that the DEI boogeyman is out to get you. Can’t have it both ways…Chad.
“Life isn’t fair and that goes for all of us.”
What a lazy, pathetic, pushover mentality. “Best to just rollover and take it”. You do you, but I guess it is harder to do when you have a spine. Life isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean I have to allow myself to be treated poorly because someone else is small minded. You, of course, are free to take it and say “thank you, may I have another” all you want.
@AngryFlier you are right, “life isn’t fair.” It’s not fair when vulnerable and at-risk populations are marginalized and treated as less-than. It’s not fair when people force me to accept their religions, especially when those religions are used to oppress me and people like me. It’s not fair when people abuse their positions of power to stand on the backs of others.
We are dealing with it…we are reminding everyone out there that you espouse is in the minority..albeit a vocal minority. We are reminding people that efforts to ban books, tell educators how to educate and telling people what they can and cannot do with their bodies and weaponizing the government to do so is the definition of fascism.
I am dealing with it by fighting as if my life depends on it. Because from what I’m seeing, it does. You can call me woke, but I’m fighting for my rights as hard as other people are fighting to take them away.
You wokesters suffering from white guilt crack me up. Flew FC all the time in my 20’s as an Elite on TWA and AA. Many, many, MANY times I was questioned by gate agents. Zero age discrimination complaints were lodged. This lady needs to get over it.
@SOBE ER DOC
No people like you are in the minority.
The majority support banning men from invading women spaces and abusing children. The majority support protecting the children from indoctrination and death that people like you subject them to.
You suffer from an oppression delusion. You are a cancer on society.
“That said, @chad, it’s funny how people like you claim that perceptions of oppression by marginalized groups is “delusion” yet many like you clutch your pearls crying that the DEI boogeyman is out to get you. Can’t have it both ways…Chad.”
Dei is the only legitimate “systemic racism” that still exists. Fortunately the supreme court is about to end it once and for all.
When you are treated equally you scream the loudest because your indoctrination has programmed you to be the “victim”.
Would be interesting to know what form this “questioning” took. I’ve been asked “are you in First Class” a fair few times, to which “yes” proved to be a sufficient answer. I expect there are lots of people who accidentally or deliberately try to access the queue for First when they’re not entitled to, and it makes sense to clarify early.
However, if the questioning was more protracted then I can see why she might feel aggrieved.