Conventional wisdom suggests that no matter how terrible a job
you're doing, you can sustain a certain amount of bad press without
going down for the count. Negative news stories, editorials of a
critical nature, these can be spun away by any decent public
relations department.
But once you hit the funny papers, you've got real trouble. Such
could be the case with the airline industry. For the past two
weeks, Roger Fox, the hapless patriarch of Bill Amend's comic
strip, Foxtrot, has found himself caught up in most of the merry
mishaps that airline passengers suffer through every day.
Ordered by his boss to fly to Boonhurst to "wrap up that
Gernandco deal," Fox attempts to cope with sprawling airports,
unannounced schedule changes, gate changes, route changes, the
consequences of ticking off a flight attendant ("I knew I shouldn't
have called him a stewardess"), cramped seating, lousy food...the
guy is having one bad trip.
If I ran the airlines I'd be paying close attention. A fed-up
public's demand for passenger rights legislation appears to have
been neatly handled, but that was before Roger Fox. Before we, the
people, had a spokesman we could relate to: A goofy, working stiff
who's just trying to get someplace. Fly, Roger. Fly.