randomwisdom.com

I traveled back home for Christmas and New Year's, from Narita airport in Tokyo through LAX on an ANA flight, and catching a connecting flight back home via Southwest Airlines. I don't know what the problem is, but service and civility at airports and by airlines in the United States have really gone downhill.

Both the airline staff and security at Narita airport were polite, cordial, and spoke both English and Japanese. There were plenty of open counters at check-in, I handed over my one checked bag with a bottle of sake (they helpfully affixed a red "fragile" tag to my bag), and was on my way to security within 10 minutes. One young woman asked if there was a laptop in my carryon bag as I went through, informed me that if I was wearing a belt it would probably set off the metal detector, asked for my jacket to send it through the x-ray machine, and bid me walk through the arch with shoes and dignity intact. The whole affair took about 5 minutes. The people at emigration were equally polite, and as my paperwork was in order my passport was stamped quickly.

As usual, my flight on All Nippon Airways was excellent. The food was very good, beer and wine was available with meals free of charge, and the staff handled every situation with politeness and grace-- from the two toddlers in front who were given a toy to keep them busy to the gentleman next to me who got a little tipsy and started hitting on a stewardess (who simply shrugged the incident off and handed him off to a male attendant). The flight was scheduled to take 9 hours and 40 minutes, but it got there half an hour early.

Then I got into L.A. and things went to hell. First you've got the seventy billion touts outside, each one scrambling to make a buck or five (and not a single sign telling you where to walk for your connecting flight). Then when you finally get there, you get to walk up and figure out how to check yourself in while the folks behind the counter sit and chat with their colleagues. They don't even take your bags; you get to walk all the way around and drop them off at a separate security checkpoint. Then you have to walk OUTSIDE the building and back inside through a different exit, where they redirected us through some employee corridor to a backroom security checkpoint. The grunts running the checkpoint were barking orders at everyone, yelling at every passenger who didn't know he had to take his shoes off or remove the laptop from his bag. As I passed by I overheard one loudly asking the rest of the crew if they'd taken their lunch break yet (it was 10 am). If I had been a manager on site I would have fired all of them on the spot. But if I understand correctly, this is average treatment when flying in the United States these days. And they wonder why nobody flies anymore.

If you think it's just me, I'm not the only one who thinks it's gone to hell. Read also this guy's article.