When did the “friendly” skies” become unfriendly?

I was probably among the few 12 year olds in the world who begged her father every Sunday to… I was probably among the few 12 year olds in the world who begged her father every Sunday to take her to the airport. It seemed I had an insatiable appetite for the whole scene: planes taking off, flights headed for sometimes exotic locales and a general hustle and bustle that enchanted me.

While my weekly trips to the Pittsburgh International Airport have since receded, my interest in the field of aviation has not. Having spent quite a few years observing, and more recently writing about, different aspects of aviation, I’m not exactly thrilled with what I see.

We’ll begin at the same place where most passengers typically begin their journeys — at the check-in counter. Let’s talk about the e-check-in kiosks that have taken us all yet one step closer to a world devoid of human employees.

These computerized machines are meant replace human staff members and ideally expedite the check-in process. The kiosks fail to achieve either of these goals.

Rather, there are usually several passengers simultaneously crying out for help to the one unlucky employee who is running around trying to debug kiosk issues, all the while checking customers’ IDs and weighing and tagging other travelers’ luggage.

This is not efficiency. This is chaos. Thanks to the kiosks, the check-in process is often not accelerated, but instead hindered. If the kiosks must stay, then perhaps passengers should be afforded a training course on how to navigate the things.

Moving on to security: More consistency is needed among airports throughout the country. Whereas I’ve been able to get by some screeners with scissors and other similar objects at certain airports, others have confiscated the items from me.

My dad once made it all the way to Seattle and back with a lethal-looking ski lock in his jacket pocket. Of course he never had any malicious intent, but this device made for a much more serious (potential) weapon than a tiny pair of cosmetic scissors.

And now for a word on the boarding process. Most airlines have some system or other that seems to work well enough, so there is not much to harp on here. However, a recent chaotic experience with Northwest Airlines compels me to say something.

On a NWA flight from Denver (on a 757 aircraft, which is a relatively large plane) after all the folks with silver, gold, platinum and so on reward cards had boarded the jet, the representative called for “general boarding.”

No, she didn’t call passengers by seat number or zone number or by some other rational means. She just summoned all of the passengers on to the plane.

This resulted in a nightmarish herd of people storming the boarding area all at once, creating a logjam in the jetway and total disorder on the plane itself.

As fate would have it, most of the people who boarded first were seated toward the front, so by the time the folks in the rear of the aircraft got on, most of the overhead bins were filled.

Thus, a handful of passengers were trapped in the back of the plane, with large pieces of carry-on luggage that they had nowhere to stow. It was not the most impressive boarding technique I had ever seen.

So, what about in-air service? The airlines have desperately scoured their business plans over the past couple of years, looking for places to cut costs. One area that took a particularly hard hit was in-flight food service.

Food is one of the basic necessities of life and people need to be fed! Sadly, on my last multi-hour flight, the options consisted of little more than some trail mix or a box with cheese, crackers and beef jerky — all for a fee, of course.

Like many other businesses these days, the airlines rely on automated voice systems to assist customers with various things, such as redeeming air miles. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one who would be glad to reduce my talk time with these systems.

When I tried to redeem air miles last year, I had the pleasure of meeting “Alan,” US Airways’ voice-automated, dividend-miles reservations agent.

Alan had problems understanding my departure city, confusing “Pittsburgh” with “Erie,” which is actually not all that surprising since he is a computer! He also had trouble understanding my dividend miles number and my pin number as well. But at least he was polite, adding in a “my mistake” after each error that he made.

The airline industry is currently in a quandary, as it tries to cut costs and simultaneously please an ever-rising number of passengers. Although this is not an easy task, there are definitely areas worth improving.

After all, 12 year olds grow up to have pretty high expectations of air service.

Wanna go watch planes take off? E-mail Christine at clh4@pitt.edu.