This isn’t tech related, other than the fact that I’m writing this post 20,000 or so feet in the air thanks to Gogo on Virgin Flight VX746 from San Francisco to Seattle. But if I’m going to rightly trash Delta for their atrocious behavior on a recent set of flights then it is only fair that I give a high five when I see an airline fail to fail its customers.
Virgin and Southwest Airlines tend to have happier employees, and that translates to a much better customer experience. I’ve found Jet Blue and Alaska to also be decent, but with occasional flaws. None of them are perfect, but it sure feels nice to be on a flight where common empathy isn’t nonexistent.
Case in point – I had just boarded the flight with my carry on luggage (the luggage that Delta says is too big, but Virgin seems not to mind). I was just about last on again, and even up in first class the luggage racks were mostly full. A women in coach with a violin came up and asked a flight attendant if she could find space for her instrument. Because the last thing you want to do is put an extremely fragile violin into the vagaries of the mysteriously brutal checked luggage system.
Molly Choma, the flight attendant, managed to coordinate the first class passengers to move their luggage around to accommodate the violin. There was a touchy moment involving the woman across from me and her Gucci bag, but otherwise everything went just fine.
I can tell you with certainty that any Delta flight attendant (at least any of the ones I’ve met) would have scoffed at a customer asking for assistance stowing their violin. That violin would have been thrown out of the cabin and, maybe, made its way to checked luggage. On a different plane, of course, probably one off to Europe or something.
Anyhow, after we took off Molly came up to me to say she was an occasional TechCrunch reader. Which just goes to show that statistically speaking, TechCrunch readers are nicer, more empathetic and intelligent than the general population.
ps – TechCrunch reader Derek Johnson is sitting next to me on the flight as well, and reading TechCrunch. He’s just started pitching me on HometoPhone. I’ll let you know how it goes.