What's Happened to Airport Hospitality?

On our bookshelf at home, we have an ancient children's book entitled, "Let's Go For A Ride On An Airplane". Printed long before 9-11, the book depicts friends and family standing at the gate with flowers and balloons, smiling flight attendants, a friendly airplane pilot, and delicious meals being served on the airplane. My children have read the book a hundred times, and have so looked forward to the day that they would finally get to go on an airplane ride of their own!

The day before we left for California, Justin received a confirmation e-mail from the airline, informing us that we were allowed one carry-on and one personal item on the flight. If we wanted to check any baggage, it would cost $30 for the first bag, and $50 for each additional suitcase. What the heck? Getting this news just hours before we left home, I hurriedly un-packed the big suitcase I had planned on bringing, and re-crammed our family's belongings into three smaller roller cases, a backpack and a diaper bag.

Once at the airport, getting through security with a family of six, a stroller, and all of our baggage was a chore. The double-stroller I was pushing kept getting caught on every line-divider stand I drove around and Justin and I had to scurry to get all of the kids' shoes taken off and put back on without holding up the line behind us. I had absent-mindedly packed my full-size bottle of hairspray, which was confiscated by the security guard because it was too big. Luckily, he was nice enough to let me keep my diaper rash cream and face lotion.

We found our seats on the plane and anticipated take-off. The boys were SO excited! Justin and I were slightly disappointed that there wasn't an empty seat next to us for Eden to sit on, so we were going to have to hold her on our laps for the full four-hour flight. She was squirmy for the first couple of hours, but by the third hour of the flight, she was all-out ornery! She screamed and cried for a good 45 minutes straight. I felt trapped, with nowhere to take my crying baby. Worried that we were irritating the people around us, I picked Eden up and walked to the back of the plane, where the flight attendants seemed annoyed that I was standing in their space. I didn't know where else to go, so I waited for one of the lavatories to become available and stepped inside. I stood in the tiny closet of a bathroom with my screaming baby until someone else needed to use the toilet. I thought Eden might be hungry, but I hadn't brought any food, and wasn't about to pay $4 for a bag of peanuts. I had already given Eden a bottle of milk when the flight attendants first served beverages, so I wasn't sure if I would be allowed another drink or not. I hesitantly approached one of the flight attendants and asked if I might be able to get another carton of milk for my baby. With pursed lips, she looked at me and said in disbelief, "You want another one?" She grabbed a carton of milk off her cart and shoved it at me. Later, the same attendant approached me and said, "You know, you're really lucky that this was a breakfast flight. Normally we don't get any milk at all on here, so next time you might want to come better prepared." Breakfast flight?! Somehow I must have missed the sausage and pancakes, but I suppose requesting a carton of milk for my baby really was too much to ask.

As bad as the trip TO California was, coming home was even worse. We had a heck of a time trying to navigate our way to the rental car return, and arrived at LAX feeling tired and a little stressed-out. We did the whole scurry through security check thing, and of course, one of my bags had some suspicious items in it. An extremely rude security officer started combing through the items in my backpack, pulling out a bottle of Banana Boat sunscreen that we had purchased and used twice during out trip to Disneyland. He informed me that it was too big and couldn't go through. Slightly annoyed at losing an almost-full bottle of spf 30, I muttered under my breath, "You're going to take away my sunscreen?" A few moments later, the security officer found my bottle of face lotion and said that I wouldn't be allowed to take it with me. Unwisely, I chose to argue with him, by stating that I had brought that same bottle of face lotion with me on my flight to California without a problem. At this point, the guard got right up in my face and said, "Look. I don't know where you flew from or what, but you're only allowed to bring containers that are 3.5 ounces and this is 4 ounces, so it's TOO BIG!!!" In an effort to calm everyone down and end the conflict, Justin stepped in and said, "Okay, okay, fine. Just take the lotion. Throw it away. Whatever. It's fine." Then the security guy started yelling at Justin, saying, "FIRST OF ALL, I'M TELLING YOU WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN HERE, YOU'RE NOT TELLING ME!!! RIGHT NOW, I'M GOING TO TAKE THESE ITEMS AWAY, AND THIS BAG IS GOING TO GO BACK THROUGH THE SECURITY CHECK." I was in absolute shock that he would talk to us that way! Feeling powerless to do anything about it, I stepped forward and started putting things back into the backpack. I picked up my makeup bag, and the security guard immediately grabbed it and yanked it forcefully out of my hands, looking at me with these wide, intimidating eyes. Feeling bullied and humiliated, I started to cry! I tried to compose myself until we got away from the security check, and then I couldn't stop the tears from coming. I simply could not believe that we had been treated so badly by a man in uniform! It was horrible!

We boarded our plane and took a seat. Brock, Austin and Brandon were sitting on one side of the aisle and Justin, Eden and I were directly across from them on the other side. I laid my head back on the head rest and closed my eyes for just a moment of peace. Then, the lady sitting in front of Brock turned around in her seat, looked at me and said, "Could you please try to get them to stop kicking the seats in front of them?" No sooner had I asked the boys to hold their feet still than the flight attendant walked by, looked at the three boys, then at Eden sitting on my lap and said, "You're busy." I tried to smile, as the tears started flowing again. Why can't anyone just be NICE to me today? Luckily, I do have a very nice husband, who offered to sit in the aisle seat when he noticed that the same ornery flight attendant from the flight to CA was now on the flight home. He also held Eden on his lap the whole way, and managed to keep her quiet with lots of fruit snacks, apple juice (no milk this time since we weren't on a "breakfast" flight) and a $3 chocolate chip cookie.

After flying to California and back, I'm beginning to think that the children's book we have on the shelf doesn't offer a very realistic depiction of air travel in 2009. I'm really beginning to wonder what happened to the friendly, hospitable way of serving airline customers. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever fly on a plane anywhere ever again!!!


Edited to add: After reading this post, Justin informed me that the $3 chocolate chip cookies that the kids ate on the plane didn't cost him anything. Apparently the flight attendant that had commented earlier about my being "busy," felt pity on us and gave the kids the cookies for free. So, I'm very happy to report that perhaps there is some hope for airline hospitality after all!!!