I feel for the airlines, dahrlings, I really do. An FA can’t tie his shoelaces without it turning into a mid-air gotcha. Fly a mile in their shoes, why dontcha, and see if you don’t want to decapitate 23B.
But I digress.
Dear Consumer Press (aka The Enemy of the Airline),
An airline is a major operation with thousands of moving parts all of which have rules so we can arrive with the same body parts we left with.
Denied boarding. Weather delays. Rowdy behaviour. Being asked to disembark because you’re so conked it takes 3 people to wake you. (Yes, Pumpkins, that has happened to me on a number of occasions, but never because a flying phobia forced me to take a sedative. It’s just recreational in my case.)
Point is, the press eat this stuff like their fat kid’s halloween candy.
CBC had a major hard arm for Air Canada.
Global was on Sunwing’s tail for years.
And today, news outlets (including a US trade pub) are sounding the alarm over WestJet’s handling of sleeping beauty. The guy was zonkers. Out cold. Droolsville. On take off.
And there’s a tiny little security rule that insists one be in control of one’s limbs and/or faculties in case of, what is commonly referred to in airline parlance, Pumpkins, as “an emergency”. In accordance with safety regulations, Mr. Outtavit was asked to disembark to be checked by medics.
Now, who among us hasn’t peaked too early because we miscalculated the timing of our meds? Can happen to anyone. But if the carrier hadn’t followed protocol, and, knock on the cockpit door, something did happen ... the hyenas in the press gallery would devour the airline.
Unlike the orange leader of the free world, I’m not saying all this incident reporting is fake news. What I’m saying is, it isn’t news.
Editor’s Note: Links to above mentioned stories have not been provided in order not to encourage clicks to these stories which only encourages more of these types of stories and so on and so forth.
Ivanna Gabbalot Columnist
Part legend, part myth, all woman: Ivanna Gabbalot is OJ’s gossip columnist and considers herself the industry’s conscience. Equally annoying to Open Jaw management and inflated egos in C-suites everywhere, Ivanna touches topics others fear to tackle.
