A. Mr. Fesler is hardly alone in his antipathy toward the airlines, as anyone who has spent time reading the angry customer postings on Web sites like flyertalk.com, airlinerage.com and flightsfrornhell.com knows.
B. All this has created a generation of fliers who now view getting on a plane as roughly akin to entering the ninth circle of hell.
C. Thus airlines are increasingly cutting back services in coach or charging passengers for things that used to be free, like meals or drinks or, in the case of Delta, US Airways, Northwest and Continental, starting to use narrow-body planes more frequently on trans-Atlantic flights, making those long-haul flights more cost-effective, albeit at the expense of passenger comfort.
D. Passengers flying business class on United from Washington Dulles to Frankfurt, for example, are now offered "180-degree fie-flat" seats. The upgraded seats, which are part of a multimillion-dollar makeover of its international premium cabins, transform into 6-foot4-inch beds and feature larger personal TV screens, iPod adapters and noise-canceling headphones.
E. Does that sound harsh Well, an unexpected—but not totally surprising—insight into how airline executives think these days came this summer when B. Ben Baldanza, chief executive of the aggressively bare-bones Spirit Airlines, hit "reply all" to an e-mail message from a passenger who wished to be compensated for a delayed flight that caused him to miss a concert he was planning to attend. Mr. Baldanza’s response, which seemed to be intended only for a Spirit Airlines employee but subsequently appeared on multiple travel blogs, said:" Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.
F. On that flight, the audio for the movie was broken. The light that indicated when the bathroom was occupied was squirrely, causing confusion and, in some cases, embarrassingly long waits for passengers in need of the lavatory. And though food was available for purchase, it ran out before the flight attendants could serve the entire cabin, leaving some fellow passengers looking longingly at the snack he had packed.