Somewhere between bankruptcy and profitability the airlines lost their way. And somewhere between the tarmac at JFK and the friendly skies, the thought strikes me that the time for sympathy has long since passed.
In response to heavy losses earlier this decade, management sought to balance the books by reducing quality and costs. They cut back on customer service – often in petty ways – and slashed pay for airline workers, and then, despite high fuel prices, they slowly crawled back toward profitability. And investors are happy – air travel is growing by 7 percent each year.
Of course, I’m neither a shareholder nor an employee – I’m just an economy-class customer struggling to work on a six hour cross-country flight. I’m average height; my knees are buckled against the seat in front of me. If the guy in front of me leans back any more my laptop keyboard will be on my chest. And if I don’t work, I won’t get much sleep tonight.
The government regulates safety, but personal comfort and productivity is a free market issue. “We do not mandate comfort. It is up to airline how they want to configure seats,” says Alison Duquette, FAA spokeswoman. “As far as how many seats an airline can cram in there or configure it’s up to them.”

