Is the airline industry a monster, as some appear to believe, or simply misunderstood?
By Geoffrey Thomas Air Transport World, February 2007, p.58 Buy this issue THE SCENE PROBABLY IS REPEATED around the globe every day. An airline industry professional gets a phone call or e-mail or text message from a friend or relative who is about to take a flight but, having seen yet another air disaster profiled on television, is getting jittery. Once convinced it is safe to fly, the next question is: “How come the ticket costs so much?” Meanwhile the airline professional ponders why the safest, cheapest and one of the cleanest forms of travel has such a lousy image. It is a question to which no one seems to have a complete answer, but wherever one looks, lack of comprehension abounds. Television dramatizes accidents from decades past with hardly a word about the safety advances that occurred as a result of the lessons learned. Mass media outlets have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for stories claiming that fares are too high and/or service is too low. Ostensibly credible sources
