Princess Leia for a Day

by David Benjamin

“We should also put an end to the airlines’ pursuit of smaller and smaller seats, which are not only uncomfortable and even physically harmful, but also foster in-flight rage and make the job of flight attendants nigh unbearable.” 

— Tim Wu. New York Times,  16 March 2020

Ed Bastian

CEO

Delta Airlines

1030 Delta Blvd. 

Atlanta GA 30320

Dear Ed:

My heart goes out to you. The idea of having to go hat-in-hand to Donald Trump must really fry your cookies. Here you are, a gazillionaire tycoon face-to-face with the ugly prospect of begging for a government handout from a giant orange shag-rug muppet who has racked up five bankruptcies in his career, despite operating in two businesses whose main function is laundering Mob money. 

Plus, now you’ve got 20,000 socialist stewardesses trying to join a union and spit on the red-white-and-blue Delta logo. Shame on them, and what’s the point? Even if you took your annual compensation of $14,982,448 and divvied it up among all your flight attendants, what would they get? A measly 700 bucks a year.

I’m sure you’ve told these greedy girls that their surest path to financial security is not anti-American agitation. It’s the same as it’s always been. They watch their weight and they wiggle their tushies, working their way up to First Class where they can pamper and flatter rich old men willing to change their wills in return for a regular diet of mile-high nookie. Why change the formula, yo?

Besides, a national crisis is hardly the time for these ungrateful bimbos to blackmail an earnest businessman who’s only trying to shelter in place, preferably in the Caymans, before the government vultures and union commies come to gnaw on his liver.  

However, as a recent convert (from American) to Delta, it occurs to me — with all due reverence to your convictions — that the coronavirus travel hiatus offers a golden opportunity for your airline to undertake a dazzling public-relations re-set before the political tides shift and the Democrats smell blood in the water. 

Step one in this transformation would be for you to feign a sort of spiritual epiphany. In this awakening, it suddenly comes to you that I, as one of your typical freight-objects, am not a sausage.

I know. It has become an article of faith for airlines everywhere — but especially in the United States — that the things you stuff into “seats” barely a foot wide and a few inches apart, for periods as long as 14 hours, are not human beings in the same sense as, say, a major stockholder, or a fatcat in First Class flying on a corporate expense account, is a human being. 

“Passengers” like me have come to an awareness that — as soon as we pass through Gate 97C — we have descended into sausagehood. In a previous century, the average traveler might have been distressed over a demotion so demeaning. But in Delta’s brave new world, we have no choice, unless we pay an extra $500 and sign up for a Skymiles Mastercard. The most consolation we can expect is to be regarded as a nice plump knockwurst rather than a mere Oscar Meyer weiner or — God forbid — a breakfast patty.

In that light, from the sausage point of view, allow me to relate my experience recently on Delta Flight 43 from Paris to Minneapolis. Let’s overlook the fact that Delta jerked me around for several days, changing my seat assignment repeatedly without notice, refusing my phone calls and brandishing for a week the threat of cancellation and exile among the French. As we both know, these are the streamlined innovations, common to all up-to-date airlines, that keep travelers on our toes and lend the airport experience an invigorating frisson of suspense. 

When I had run the Delta maze and finally approached my seat — 31F — on Flight 43, imagine my surprise when I saw, in seat 31E, next to mine, a passenger who was not merely a tidy bratwurst, or a round juicy boudin blanc. This guy was, literally, the whole hog. A third of him spilled over into my seat. Another third similarly constrained seat 31D. He was Jabba the Hutt, with feet. As I wedged myself into the half-seat (roughly nine inches) available to me, and as I pondered the prospect of nine hours crushed beneath and leaning away from him, aware of the possibility that half his body weight might consist of leaky globules of coronavirus, I pictured Princess Leia in captivity.

Princess Leia, chained and nestled uneasily, queasily, in the lap of the vast, green, reptilian slug. 

But this was my imagination run amok. 31E introduced himself and behaved as politely as I could expect from the world’s largest pork shoulder. I adjusted after a fashion, shrinking as much as I could, hovering over the aisle — where my position afforded me the novel experience of being hit by every passing food cart. And food? With Jabba the Hutt’s immense, swollen arm covering my tray-table, I held my tinfoil dish off to the side, lost much of my meal onto the carpet and gave up entirely after about six shaky forkfuls.

The silver lining? Delta’s in-flight meals are only slightly tastier than sautéed Ken-L-Ration. 

Here, Ed, is where you deserve a strong note of commendation. Not one of your otherwise insurrectionist flight attendants broke Delta protocol. None took even the slightest note of my displacement or that of Jabba the Hutt’s other neighbor in 31D (who spent most of the nine hours standing). Call it Delta solidarity. No one noticed. No one cared. No one lifted a finger. You should be bustin‘ your buttons. 

An interesting sidelight, Ed. My seat belonged to a category comically designated as “Comfort-Plus” (good one, Ed!). Within my sight, there were seats in Row 30, tantalizing empty. But they were across the border, in the the next-highest caste of air-travel feudalism — therefore untouchable. 

I realize you might not be aware of such things but, in almost any normal situation involving human interaction, and compassion — rather that sausage delivery — one of your employees might have perceived the difficulties suffered not only by myself and the guy in 31D, but by Jabba the Hutt himself. Such considerateness might have triggered an un-airlinelike act of mercy, moving me and good old stoic 31D one row forward — leaving Jabba the Hutt to spread, like a deflating dirigible, in luxuriant spaciousness. 

Unthinkable? For an airline, of course! But not for Christianity.

Here’s a thought, Ed. As Delta sits (mostly) on the tarmac, bleeding revenue and groveling at the feet of the tightwad apprentice in the White House, you might consider restoring your passengers to human status, giving them enough room to sit, rescuing their battered knees, feeding them recognizable food, and protecting them from “discomfort-plus” mishaps like the misbegotten flight of Jabba the Hutt.

If not for me, for Princess Leia?

Sincerely,