Welcome to Air Steerage

The Boeing 757 seats somewhere in the neighborhood of 225 passengers, crammed in groups of three, on each side of the aircraft aisle. Leg room is minimal. Service is even less. On a six hour flight, the airline we traveled created the impression that it was being magnanimous to serve us "complimentary" soft drink beverages and 'snacks' (peanuts, cookies, or pretzels). Let me point out here, before the diatribe gets worse, that these drinks are technically not 'complimentary,' in that the cost of them has been included in the price of my ticket. Therefore, I have already paid for the drink. Once the "service" was completed, the flight attendants disappeared into the plane, hiding behind a curtain in the galley, thereby discouraging any contact with us passengers.

Having just spent the better part of this last year studying the steerage conditions in which my grandparents traveled to arrive in this country, I was struck by the parallels between their excursion and my flight: crowded conditions, indifferent staff, inadequate bathrooms, and lack of policing of other passenger behavior.

On one particular flight, a passenger in the row in front of us had managed to conceal her alcoholic beverages as "3 oz. liquids" in the quart-sized plastic bag that can get through security. She spent the better part of the six-hour overnight flight getting up and down to get more ice and clean plastic cups. Why the otherwise disinterested flight attendants couldn't smell this passenger's breath and figure out what was going on - and put a stop to it - is beyond me. When the flight attendant came by, at the end of the flight, to clean up remaining trash, she merely laughed and said, "I wished I could have joined you."

A few months ago, columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal that we pay people to treat us poorly. How right she is. A woman can get drunk on-board, mutter insulting things to passengers soto voce, and be allowed to remain on the flight. Whereas, had I fully expressed my frustration and anger at the treatment I was receiving from the airline, I likely would have been removed from the boarding line. I paid the airline to cow me.

I will acknowledge that air travel carries with it a set of anxieties that are wholly unique to this mode of travel. In addition to the normal risks that accompany air travel, there are the unexpected issues related to mechanics, hydraulics, and weather. There are increasing tensions as terrorists continue to find ways to use airplanes to conduct their attacks. And there are the dangers that an on-board passenger, or passengers, will put an entire aircraft at risk.

All the more reason, then, that airlines ought to be pushing customer service, care for every passenger, and passenger comfort to the forefront. We know that the FAA demands safety, and that airlines can skirt those regulations at their own peril. Since flight safety should be a given, airlines should treat each of us with dignity and respect. Most of us are flying because we have traveled to see loved ones, taken a vacation, or may be looking for a new place to live. We want the entire memory of our collective experience to be positive - not marred by the unwarranted hassles and indignities that seem to be the stock in trade of some airlines.

We are not "the huddled masses," as were our ancestors. Unlike my forebears, who never planned a return trip across the Atlantic once they arrived here, most of us, myself included, hope for another opportunity to travel again.

I guess I was mistaken in thinking that the indignities of steerage ended when the door to mass immigration closed in 1924. I guess I was wrong. The practice of demeaning passengers has now been transferred to the airport.

Dear Macy's....

Dear Macy's Department Store:

Here is how you lost $150 worth of sales in the last two weeks.

As one of your credit card holders, you regularly fill my Inbox with announcements of special sales, promotional offers, and "deals." And, from time to time, those messages do what you want them to - move me to go to your web site, and shop.

Just for the record, I typically shop online because I live out in the boonies, 12 miles from a convenience store with gas pumps and 25 miles from a shopping center. With time as much at a premium as money, if I can order it online, I do.

And so it was, just the other week, that I received an e-mail that promised me free shipping on purchases of $99 or more, including bed and bath items. We had just bought a new, queen-sized mattress set for our guest bedroom, and I needed sheets. Since I had purchased a wonderful comforter from you (on-line) several months earlier, Macy's web site was my first stop. I found some sheets that I wanted at a very good price; so good, in fact, that I selected a set of king-sized sheets for our own bed, both because of the price, but also because I would then qualify for the free shipping (I thought). Then, I selected a mattress cover for the new bed. I was ready to check out.

On the check-out web page, I entered the promotional code for free shipping. My order totaled over $100, and as far as I could tell, I qualified for that premium. But, according to your web site, I did not. A message, in red, appeared at the top of the order page screen: The items in your order do not qualify you for this promotion.

I double-checked both the way I entered the promotional code, and the terms of the code (as, at least, I understood them to apply), and tried again. Once again, the red-lettered notice appeared at the top of the screen. I was invited to call a customer service number, but my experience with customer service phone calls, in general, is that it is better termed "customer no-service." With my typical off-colored language response, I abandoned your web site, and went to my favorite on-line shopping place: Target.

Imagine my delight when the first thing I saw on the Target home page was: Free shipping for orders $50 or more.

I located the sheets that I wanted and a mattress cover, which came to just over $50. No hidden requirements, no need to buy another set of sheets. Free delivery. Macy's, you just lost a sale.

Fast forward a few days. My Mary Kay sales rep has been slow getting my facial cleansers to me, so I decided I would take advantage of another offer that you, Macy's, had sent to my Inbox: an Estee Lauder promotion. Once again, I click on macys.com, go to the Estee Lauder section, and click until I get to the cleansers section. I start looking for what I want - products for women with dry skin. I find the cleanser, but where's the toner????

After about five minutes of trying to locate what I want, my frustration level has reached its peak. I'm still pretty ticked off at you about the time I wasted "shopping" for sheets and feeling ripped off by your unmet promises of free shipping. Google, bless its little, electronically-intrusive heart, has put some ads at the bottom of the screen, and one of them takes me directly to EsteeLauder.com.

Immediately, I feel enveloped in an electronic female world. I am invited to join that world, for which I am promised an immediate gift (free shipping on a $35 order), a chance to chat with an expert, and access to all of Estee Lauder's goodies.

As was the case with my Target purchase, my Estee Lauder purchase moved along quickly, easily, and was fun. If Estee Lauder could figure out how to make some perfume waft through the computer screen's electrons, I could almost feel as if I'm directly in their salon.

The piece de resistance was when I opened my Estee Lauder package when it arrived, the third business day after I placed the order. Inside the nondescript cardboard box was a tissue-wrapped package, sealed with an "EL" sticker, in its signature script. Just because I live on a farm does not mean I don't want to feel elegant and feminine. I will admit that I even "oohed-and-ahhed" a little when I looked at my pretty pink items inside the tissue wrap.

Many years ago, a president of a Chamber of Commerce in a neighboring county told me that the Internet would transform how we shopped. He said it would allow rural areas to thrive, because people would be able to purchase the same items then only available if you drove to a city. He was uncannily prescient. However, Internet sales are not a given. Like bricks-and-mortar selling, selling via the Internet requires an acknowledgment of competition and promotional savvy.

In the past, when I've listened to, or read, quarterly reports on department store sales, I've assumed that the sales declines in larger, "legacy" stores, like Macy's, are because of a company's age, which often also means the company has less nimble management. If my recent experiences with Macy's web site are any indication, the company may have some management "hardening of the arteries." A failure to grasp that it's the little things that can make a big difference add up over time. By not giving me a $6 savings in shipping, Macy's lost a $100+ sale.

Target has long been an on-line ordering favorite; Estee Lauder is now going to be added to the list. And, Macy's, you've got some work to do to stay on my list. Don't count on my loyalty just because I have one of your credit cards.