Online Public Relations Thoughts

Young folks are often irritated when elders talk about the good old days. The good old days were seldom better than the present -- except. There is one area in which the good old days were better by far than the present -- airline travel. We were on the road today from the Midwest. Our team went out on Wednesday night for a meeting today. Air travel in the past was SO much better than it is now. The people of smaller Midwestern towns have it worse than we do on the East Coast. The airlines use small jets in which one is so close to the seat in front that knees are jammed against its back. The seats are uncomfortable too, and one's bum is aching long before a one-hour flight is over.

The worst, though, is the food -- or lack of it. Tonight we paid a dollar for a bag of trail mix on a flight from Minneapolis to New York, or we were invited to pay three dollars for a mingy piece of cheese and some crackers. I chose the trail mix.

I don't want to go back to the days of government-regulated airlines but can't we have something more than trail mix for a dollar? Airlines have no idea what this rotten service is doing to their reputations. Even bus lines are better.