From the Tarmac: Understanding the Business

I enjoy traveling.  Be it for work and for pleasure but I tend to spend more time than the average person in airports.  Because of this, my less travel adept friends come to me asking for advice from everything from where to purchase to how to have less headaches while in the airport.  So I've decided to have a little series here on my blog with tips and tricks:  From the Tarmac.

The first thing I always tell people is to have a better travel experience, you should try to understand the experience from the point of the airlines. (This is a good theory in life as well, try to put yourself in another's shoes and you will feel more empathetic.) 

So here is the cold, hard truth:  The point of the airline business is to make money. They are corporations and this is the goal of a corporation - love it or hate it.  Now, my dear leisure traveler, what types of passengers do airlines covet?  The type that travels the most and therefore brings the most profit.  These are the travelers that airlines want, they're the ones that the airlines market to, they're the ones that airlines want in their loyalty programs.  And this, dear leisure traveler, is not you.  These passengers are business travelers - the ones that fly regularly and for that matter don't mind paying a little more for a ticket (since it won't be paid out of their own pocket, in most cases.)   It might be hard to hear if you're not used to the fast-paced corporate eye-on-the-prize environment - but it's the truth, these corporations are in it for the money.  In it to save themselves from bankruptcy.   So next time, when an airline doesn't re-book you  in favor of that man in a suit jacket, just take a deep breath and remember - he's probably given the airline a lot more money than you have and probably has loyalty with the airline.  They simply care about his business more than your bottom-dollar-not-much-profit-in-it ticket.

I'm sorry if that's too harsh for you, but once you calm down I hope you realize it's the truth.  And honesty really is the best policy.




flying over those fly-over states.