Randi Kreiss

Last to board, but first in flight attendants’ hearts

Posted

Breathless, my husband called to tell me he had been knighted. I don’t think the queen was actually involved, but you would think so. Apparently, JetBlue has decided that he is now a Mosaic member.

I’m not exactly sure what this means, but I believe it confers special status, allowing him to get a free drink when a flight is delayed five hours, as his was that day. Small comfort, you say; however, the appeal of privileged status in every aspect of contemporary life is widely popular — despite rapidly becoming ever so unattractive.

As we waited for a flight not long ago, my sense of self-worth began to shrink as the gate attendant called people to board the plane. “We will now board our First Class, Premier and Platinum passengers, please,” she said.

I looked at my ticket. Nope, I wasn’t one of those. Sinking lower into my seat, I waited. Next she called for Elite One passengers. I wasn’t one of those, either. Elite Two? Not me.

Finally, I thought I heard her say, “The rest of you schleps,” but what she actually said was, “Watch your step” and the great, common mass of us Coach passengers were invited on board. By the time we entered the craft, the First Class folks were already sipping drinks and snuggling down into their plastic-wrapped, hygienic blankets. When one of the Coach passengers tried to grab a First Class blanket, the flight attendant took it out of his hands and firmly scolded, “These are for First Class passengers.” She didn’t say that in the back of the airbus there were no blankets, as that amenity had been eliminated.

We Americans like to think of ourselves as a classless society. That was why we broke with the king, wasn’t it? We didn’t like all those titles, all that genuflecting and ring kissing.

Now, only 240 years after the Declaration of Independence, we embrace a travel industry that not only encourages class distinction, but turns it into big business. Americans have a short memory. Just a few generations ago we were throwing tea into Boston Harbor because we loathed the autocratic ways of England’s monarch. Now the descendants of the Sons of Liberty throw a fit if a Coach passenger tries to use their bathroom. JetBlue advertises that Mosaic passengers are treated “royally.”

Page 1 / 3