A word to the airlines. (moved)

To whom it may concern (Airlines, this means you! Delta-Northwest, this especially means you!!):
We, the passengers who choose air travel, would like to remind the airline industry that we are not cattle. The nickname "cattle class" is only a joke and should not become a reality. We are human beings and we have a right to be treated like human beings. To that end, I would like to remind the airline industry that for the human being, parents and children are not interchangeable parts. I do not wish for strangers, who have no understanding of my children’s needs, to attempt to care for my children. I should not be forced to trust a random person who I have not met with the care of my most precious treasures. Your airports remind us often not to let strangers tend our luggage, but you expect us to let them tend our children? Likewise, my children are not comforted by strangers, and strangers are put out if they are placed next to unattended children.


To the rest of you... actually this is just an excerpt from my three page (and they deserved every syllable) letter to Delta-Northwest regarding my horrid flight experience from Honolulu to Pittsburgh. Granted, the most pleasant choice would have been to simply stay in Hawaii.

Mmmm... Hawaii.....


A word to the airlines:




But I'm nothing if not adventurous, so along with my family (one of whom is three years old) I decided to try to fly home. Big mistake. We left this:



in order to be treated like garbage by a rude and uncaring Delta-Northwest Gate agent, no correction, by three of them and then be herded onto cattle class (with Richard twenty rows away from the rest of us) with no room to stretch our legs and a hideous TV screen that I couldn't control flickering in my face ALL NIGHT LONG. I slept none at all, neither did Isaac. We landed in Atlanta at six in the morning, where we were again herded onto cattle class, this time spread over only five rows, where I had to take care of someone else's kid because her dad was five rows ahead of us. As if my three were not enough, somebody else's five year old is not my idea of flying fun.

Clearly the new Delta-Northwest has no concern for the family unit. It is no longer a family-friendly airline. Passengers beware.

As for me, I'm making sure they hear about it. I'm not interested in being treated like an animal. I am a human being, made in the image of God, and I am not going to sit back and take this sort of treatment.

But then, therein lies the problem. If you don't have a fundamental belief in a God who created mankind by hand, then we're all just over-exhalted monkeys. If we all evolved from the same goo, I suppose there's nothing wrong with treating people like animals packed into cattle class. If we're all just luck of the draw, then there is no human dignity, we're all animals after all.

Or maybe this lament is just an excuse to make you all have to look at my vacation pictures...