Attention All Passengers: The Airlines' Dangerous Descent---and How to Reclaim Our Skies

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Overview

Award-winning journalist and leading consumer advocate William J. McGee offers a shocking, essential exposé that reveals the real state of the "friendly skies."

From outsourced call centers in India to the Alabama location where all lost baggage ends up, William J. McGee crisscrossed the country and traveled around the globe immersing himself deep into the world of commercial airlines. And what he found was shocking.

McGee interviewed countless...

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Attention All Passengers: The Truth About the Airline Industry

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More About This Book

Overview

Award-winning journalist and leading consumer advocate William J. McGee offers a shocking, essential exposé that reveals the real state of the "friendly skies."

From outsourced call centers in India to the Alabama location where all lost baggage ends up, William J. McGee crisscrossed the country and traveled around the globe immersing himself deep into the world of commercial airlines. And what he found was shocking.

McGee interviewed countless industry insiders—pilots, TSA security screeners, FAA inspectors, legislators, the CEOs of the major carriers, and even Ralph Nader and Steven Slater, the disgruntled flight attendant who famously jettisoned a JetBlue flight. Here he reveals how airline executives are cutting costs in "a mad race to the bottom" by delegating flights to second-tier regional airlines and outsourcing critical aircraft maintenance and repairs to unlicensed "mechanics" in China, Singapore, Mexico, and El Salvador. And while the U.S. airlines have raked in tens of billions of dollars for checked baggage alone in recent years, our skies (and our airports) are not getting any safer. What's more, McGee explains how both political parties and all branches of the U.S. government have conspired to place corporate interests above the interests of consumers, workers, the nation's economy, and even the planet itself. Attention All Passengers will change the way you view the airline industry and make you think twice the next time you see the fasten seat belts sign.

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

For many airline passengers, "flying the friendly skies" seems to be a concept from the past. A recent MarketTools survey revealed a disturbing level of dissatisfaction and frustration among air travelers. Citing such reports, award-winning Consumer Reports travel reporter William J. McGee argues here that the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act is significantly responsible for disturbing trend that go beyond passenger discomfort and airline unresponsiveness to complaints. He notes, for instance, that free market deregulation left regional air transportation in the hands of small carriers for markedly lower safety standards. Attention All Passengers possesses both detail and analysis, making it an ideal tarmac read.

Publishers Weekly
Air travel, once glamorous, is now an ordeal for passengers, a financial drain for investors, and a nearly unsustainable business model for the dwindling number of U.S. airlines. McGee, a former flight operations manager turned journalist and consumer advocate, explains what’s wrong with commercial air travel in his debut book. The wonder is that it doesn’t run to thousands of pages. He quickly cites as a cause the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, which transformed airlines from public utilities run on a quasi-monopolistic basis to a free market business. McGee sides with critics who call for some reregulation to improve passenger experience and airline safety, and stabilize business operations. The dissection of major airlines’ use of regional carriers with lower safety standards for short flights, among other troubling practices, makes this an effective polemic. However, though he backs his assertions with statistics that show “airline accidents caused by maintenance factors have increased significantly in recent years,” McGee’s extensive research yields a jumble of confusing references to various accidents, a slew of names from many interviews, and an occasional slip into professional jargon, distracting from an otherwise compelling read. Agent: Rob Weisbach, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (July)
Boston Globe
"McGee is making a serious and important argument, and he ends with a series of suggestions...that reflect both insider knowledge and common sense."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"[A] provocative new book… McGee makes a compelling argument that minor annoyances such as baggage fees and shrinking seats are symptoms of deeper problems that are eroding the bottom line and, eventually, the safety of passengers."
Chicago Tribune
"This eye-opening book should be required reading for anyone who flies, as well as airline employees and government officials."
Captain - Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
"A damning indictment of the airline industry, and the lax oversight and economic and political pressures that are jeopardizing the safety of everyone who flies."
Ralph Nader
"This book is the broadest consistent page-turner I’ve read on airlines, including our own."
Library Journal
Consumer Reports travel journalist McGee has spent 27 years in and around the aviation industry. In 2010, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation chose him as the only consumer advocate to serve on the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. Here, McGee fills 12 chapters with information about the many cost-cutting tactics employed by the major U.S. airlines, from farming out flights to second-tier regional airlines to having aircraft repairs performed by unlicensed "mechanics'' in foreign countries. Although he alludes to his ideas earlier in the book, McGee enumerates his solutions to these problems in a chapter titled "Manifesto for Taking Back Our Skies," which is only seven pages long. This conclusion is overly simplified and easier said than done, offering few realistic and feasible steps toward change. VERDICT A word of caution: reading this book may cause a fear of flying. Despite shortcomings, this is recommended for those interested in reading about corporate bureaucracy and how it affects consumers. [See Prepub Alert, 1/16/12.]—Lisa Felix, Mishawaka-Penn-Harris P.L., IN
Library Journal
An award-winning travel journalist for Consumer Reports,McGee talked to pilots, mechanics, passengers, airline CEOs, and more to offer this critique of the friendly skies. Here, he shows executives cutting costs by relinquishing flights to regional lines and outsourcing repairs to inexperienced mechanics abroad. With a 35,000-copy first printing.
Kirkus Reviews
Award-winning Consumer Reports travel journalist McGee (Creative Writing/Hofstra Univ.) delivers a workmanlike tell-all about the airline industry. "[I]t pains me to see what's happened to what was at one time the exhilarating experience of boarding a flight," writes the author. "Today, commercial flying sucks. And everyone knows it." Indeed. Although he worked for three different airlines between 1985 and 1992 (all of which were "financially liquidated"), he derives most of the book from his interviews with, among others, flight attendants, congressmen, an FAA whistleblower and family members of an individual who died in a plane crash. McGee explains how the shortcomings of airlines can and do cost consumers more than a comfortable flight; they result in unsafe conditions. In his well-researched narrative, the author exposes the common practice of outsourcing repairs, which can result in crashes because the companies doing the repairs are not as competent or as tightly regulated. Furthermore, in at least one incident in which shoddy repairs resulted in a crash and a lawsuit, the big-name airline attempted to protect its brand by dumping the blame on the smaller company. The smaller company subsequently restarted operations under a new name. McGee's exploration of this lack of accountability is intriguing and often damning for the companies cited. Eventually, however, the book becomes repetitive. The author's rant against customer service, though certainly justified, is far from original, and he often rehashes his valid points with excess explanation and anecdotes. Informative but not terribly entertaining.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780062088376
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 6/26/2012
  • Pages: 368
  • Sales rank: 211,835
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

William J. McGee is an award-winning travel journalist for Consumer Reports and the former editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter. In 2010 the U.S. secretary of transportation chose him as the lone consumer advocate on the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. He also writes a monthly travel column for USAToday.com and has contributed to Condé Nast Traveler, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Money, New York, Parents, Good Housekeeping, and many other magazines, newspapers, websites, and blogs. Prior to becoming a journalist, McGee spent nearly seven years in airline flight operations management; he is an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher and served in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary. He earned an MFA from Columbia University and teaches creative writing at Hofstra University. He lives in Connecticut.

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Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Acknowledgments xi

Prologue: Flying Sucks 1

1 Sit Down and Shut Up or We'll Turn This Plane Around: Why Airline Service Has Collapsed and Air Rage Is Soaring 11

2 What Happened to the Airlines? 43

3 Collusion and Confusion: How Airlines Don't Play by the Rules-and How Passengers Pay 71

4 So You Think You've Found the Lowest Fare 87

5 A Mad Race to the Bottom: How Airlines Mistreat Employees, Outsource, and Ignore Passengers 107

6 When Your Airline Isn't Your Airline: Regional Carriers Provide Lower Levels of Service and Safety 139

7 Outrageous Outsourcing: The Single Greatest Threat to Airline Safety 169

8 Unsafe at Any Altitude? Facing Unprecedented Dangers 199

9 Threats to Survival: Why Many Air Crashes Need Not Be Fatal 223

10 Lights, Camera, Strip Search: The Tragicomedy of Airline Security 247

11 Cloudy Skies: Aviation's Carbon Footprint 269

12 Ink-Stained Wreckage: How Airlines Manipulate the Media 285

Epilogue: Fighting the Clock 305

Conclusion: A Manifesto for Taking Back Our Skies 307

Appendix A Domestic Mainline Airline Partnerships with Regionals 315

Appendix B Domestic Regional Airline Partnerships with Mainlines 316

Glossary 317

Selected Bibliography 319

Notes 337

Index 345

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Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 30, 2012

    Mr. McGee did a fine job in portraying the aviation industry tod

    Mr. McGee did a fine job in portraying the aviation industry today. I found his writing style to be enjoyable and easy to follow. His inside the industry point of view easily comes across to the reader without seeming to be too biased. In the nook version I would have liked to have seen the footnotes on the bottom of each page. One issue that Mr. McGee did not enlighten the reader to was how employees of today's airlines are forced to bargain over a long protracted process that can take over 5 years and save corporations billions of dollars.

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  • Posted July 12, 2012

    This is a very important book. It had to take great courage for

    This is a very important book. It had to take great courage for the author to write because he has exposed many of the dirty secrets of the aviation industry. If you ever fly, or watch someone you love get on a commercial flight, this book is so very important. Don't join the tragic group of people who have lost loved ones and had no idea why. Read the truth in this book so that you can make your own informed choices. We all have choices, informed decisons or willful ignorance.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
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