If You Want To See What Is Wrong With America, Start At The Airport
By
Leonard Zwelling
As readers are aware, the BW and I just completed a 20-day trip to Singapore and Australia that literally took us around the world going east. To do this required four different airlines and six different airports. Without exception, the experiences that one has at the American airports and on the American carriers is inferior. Let us count the ways.
Let’s start on the one American high note. Getting through security and the TSA at George Bush International Airport is about as smooth as it gets if you have TSA Pre and Clear. That being said, no other American airport that we have been to, and we have been to many in the past twelve months, comes close to Houston in efficiency of clearing security and the TSA.
Then there are the airport lounges. Istanbul may be the best anywhere. It used to be two stories tall, but now it is all on one floor. There are more food stations there than at most bar mitzvahs I have attended and the food is freshly prepared. This is a good move by Turkish Air given that layovers in Istanbul can be long. We have had one layover that was eight hours in duration coming back from South Africa and the one to get to Singapore was five hours in length. Nonetheless, I have not been to any airport lounges in the United States that compare to the one in Istanbul and the ones in Singapore, Perth, and Brisbane were all excellent and not swarming like the United Clubs in Houston.
Then there are the flights themselves. We flew four different carriers during this past trip, Turkish, Singapore, Qantas, and United. By every measure–cabin comfort, demeanor of service personnel, and food– all of the others were better than United. The United flight was a direct trip from Sydney to Houston. The entire fifteen hours was in the dark. I have no idea why. The cabin crew was not friendly and surely not as attentive as the crews were on each of the other airlines. The crews on United were all considerably older and seemed, to be blunt, burnt out. They were doing you a favor to get you a cup of coffee.
When you combine the dismal service, inferior lounges, and relatively long-in-the -tooth condition of the American airports and aircraft compared to those around the world, you have a metaphor in the making.
I get all kinds of criticism about my blog when I discuss Donald Trump and what he is doing to our country on his way to crowning himself king, but the condition of our airports and the in-flight experience on American carriers are not Donald Trump’s fault. These problems pre-date him by many years.
The American air transportation industry is based on maximizing revenue, cutting costs, and not worrying about the quality of the service provided. Once upon a time, Americans used to dress up to fly. Now you are as likely to see leisure ware and flip-flops as you are to see someone properly dressed. It’s all just a metaphor for what we have become—profit-oriented, poor in service, long-in-the-tooth, overweight, and particularly inelegant.
This didn’t used to be us, but it seems to be us now.
This could all change.
My father wore a fedora when I was a child. Most men wore fedoras then. Then, on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated in the icy cold wearing neither a hat nor a top coat. Fedoras seemed to disappear overnight.
Donald Trump has chosen to pull back on American leadership of the post-WWII world. He is upending the structure of peace and security that has kept great power world war at bay for 80 years. And, he has done this in only a year demonstrating the rapidity in which change can occur. Just as easily, America could regain its place leading the world once this second Trump Administration ends. The next president could do that and bring American airlines along with a new American century. But, the American people have to ask for that role again by voting accordingly in 2026 and in 2028.
The airlines metaphor for American regression to the mean of quality can be reversed if the American carriers care to compete on quality not just price. It’s all a choice. What America will choose over the next two years may well determine the future of American leadership or the end thereof.
