Thomas Frank: First we kill all the diamond-class five-million milers
 

Thomas Frank really nailing it:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/21/thom...illion_milers/

yup, nailing it. Good read ^

Ain't That The Truth!
 

Too True. Mr. Frank wrote a cogent article. Plane travel is now more akin to bus travel; but, I still love it!

Ha! Excellent (and fun) read. DYKWIA. An .......'s ........ ROFL

Agreed. I no longer get the same giddy feeling toward air travel that I used to (perhaps not having elite status anymore has something to do with that), but I still enjoy the process of traveling, perhaps more so now, since I inevitably focus more on my destination...

BTW, Frank picking out posts here on FT and pointing out the bozos in our midst is just tops. :D

Why does every journalist have to turn any discussion of air travel into some kind of class warfare / income inequality issue?

Indeed.

I've known one real DYKWIA in my life. Every time he had a trip coming, he'd call up the airline before the flight and start yelling at them about how they ran out of his favorite alcohol and/or steak sauce on his last flight and insist that they load enough on his next flight to satisfy his needs. Oh, and they should lavish him with vouchers for the ignominy of eating a steak without proper steak sauce. I could hear him from two offices over because he had such a booming voice.

The thing is, DYKWIA types are not just jerks toward airline employees. They are jerks in every facet of life. This DYKWIA would blow up over every trivial matter in the office. His underlings were terrified of him. His peers all hated him. He was a jerk to his wife, too, calling her every afternoon as he left the office to check that she'd started dinner so that it would be ready no more than 10 minutes after he got home.

This guy happened to be a frequent business traveler, but that was only coincidental with how much of a jerk he was. I've known plenty of frequent business travelers who are not jerks. In fact, most are not.

Being a DYKWIA is not about socioeconomic class. It's about class-class. As in, you either have class or you don't.

Because they have to justify their own existence and can't make a living doing anything useful?

Those who can, do. Those who can't write about those who can.

It's a matter of relating to your readers, the vast majority of whom are casual flyers. This type of article would never be published in a magazine pertaining to travel or aspiration living.

So true. I'm a dentist and have been in practice for almost 40 years. We discovered years ago that the few patients who are difficult, unreasonable a$$holes, who everyone in this large office shudders at the thought of seeing, is the same way outside of the office. Everyone can't stand them - not just people in our office.

Good article if a bit hyperbolic!

That educated idiot Tom Frank, who went to the same college I did (the University of Chicago) but who seems to have learned nothing other than a sarcastic attitude that I'll bet he perfected in high school, could benefit from watching this YouTube by that non-idiot, Louis CK: http://www.cc.com/jokes/x9bz2w/stand...vel-complaints

If this is "news" why is the article illustrated with a still from a movie from 35 years ago?

Have to say, reading this and seeing the spluttering indignation here from folks with premier diamond elite medallion status displaying proudly as part of their posts (an attitude the author is no doubt familiar with, having explicitly linked to this forum in his piece)... classic. Good to see someone skewering the lot of it. I look forward to further entertainment in this thread.

+1
Nailed it.
As someone working in luxury hospitality, we have a saying in the office, "money doesn't buy class".
We're also grateful we only have to deal with people a little while at a time
and not live with them, like the wife you mentioned in your example. Poor thing!

I think there are just as many ........s in coach as business. Just as many dipshit with no status as with status.

The only benefit of someone who flies a lot is generally they know how to deal with .... and get through it quickly without causing other people problems. Maybe "we" treat other people as an irritation because they're picking their ... in security and can't figure out how to get through the metal detector...

Then again the really poor people riding greyhound are probably looking at all the rich snobs that fly everywhere in their fancy "coach"....