The last time I flew on an airplane was back in November of 2003. Security was tight due to the 9/11 attacks and, as always, the Southwest Airlines flight I was on was filled to capacity. As is usually the case on such flights, there were a selection of irritations just waiting to inflict themselves upon the passengers, most of which were perpetrated by the oblivious among us. You know, the guy who believes he can fit his 400-pound carry-on into the bin directly above his row, even though the bin is already full. Then there is the lady who is all of four feet tall and 90 pounds dragging her overloaded purse, makeup bag and overstuffed carry-on down the isle, blocking everyone’s way while she contemplates God-knows-what standing in one spot for hours on end. If she also has two children under the age of six with her, you’ve struck the motherload!
Anyway, Delta Airlines had a pretty good idea; they were going to produce a bunch of humorous videos depicting these types of bad behavior and then show them during the flight hoping to educate the masses on how not to act. However, as good an idea as this is, the execution of this idea has completely rendered the idea inert. In fact, some of the resulting videos actually appear to encourage the bad behavior they are attempting to discourage. Take the following video as an example:
The video, called Miracle on 34th Row, is supposed to discourage the practice of passengers booking both the isle and windows seats and hoping no one will take the middle seat. However, in this video it appears that the couple’s evil pan works and the light of the heavens shines down upon them as a reward. How is that supposed to discourage anyone? Well, this is Delta’s answer:
Instead, says airline spokesman Andy McDill, Delta chose to take the subliminal route. The videos don’t come right out and say “you’re behaving badly,” he said. “Instead we chose to take a humorous approach, showing scenarios and letting people decide for themselves.”
Unfortunately the subliminal approach is not the route you should take when dealing with oblivious people. These people need more of a brick-in-the-face approach. Let’s compare approaches on the following video:
Now, in my version of the video, the second time the kid kicks the back of my seat, causing me to spill my drink all over myself, I stand up, turn around, and state in a very loud and authoritative voice, “EXCUSE ME LADY, BUT WOULD YOU PLEASE CONTROL THE BANSHEE IN THE SEAT NEXT TO YOU? OTHERWISE, IF HE KICKS THE BACK OF MY SEAT AGAIN I’LL JUST HAVE TO AMPUTATE HIS LEGS.” Then, when the two kids from the row in front of me start staring at me I would get all flustered and then pretend that I was just about to decapitate them with a single punch. Finally, when the kid who is running down the aisle reaches my row I would kick her feet right out from under her, and then stand up and stare down at her and point as I laughed my ass off. Call me crazy, but I think my video would work better than the one they made.
Finally, if you thought that these videos would be shown to the entire plane before takeoff, you’d be wrong.
And while I assumed Delta would be proudly showing these videos to all passengers as part of the pre-flight “rules and regulations” presentation — and at least drawing plane-wide attention to unacceptable behavior — airline spokesman Andy McDill tells me the videos are just one menu item on Delta airplanes with seat-back on-demand video monitors.
So, not only is Delta betting that the truly oblivious among us will decipher the meaning of these videos and change their ways, they are also betting that these same people will look for and chose to watch these videos of their own volition. Words fail me. One can only assume that the fate of these videos was decided by an unending stream of bureaucratic automatons, whose every thought sought to destroy all of the merit in this endeavor.
This just goes to show that corporate ineptness will kill a good idea every time.
