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Alaska Airlines superstitious blunder

I have flown in Alaska Airlines at least two round trips a month. I am in general satisfied with Alaska and its service… but I feel insulted by them, and from what I hear I am not the only one. I encourage to consider my point without attachments, and then to do something about it.

I usually upgrade to first class, which means I get a meal. And there, neatly in the most visible spot of the tray, I always get a well printed card, with the image of skies, the Alaska logo, and … a fragment from a PSALM. Something like “I will be glad an rejoice in you… O most high”, or some other like it.All of them taken from the bible, all of them equally insulting to my intelligence.

I have asked the stewardesses to remove it from my tray. Some of them try. Others look at me like something is wrong with me. I feel insulted by the shuffling of somebody’s belief of what is “common sense” and “normal” up my nose. I could be a muslim. I could be a Buddhist. I could be atheist, or agnostic, or believe in Spaghetti Deities, or whatever the poison choice. Whatever the case, I would not push my personal opinions, superstitions or kinks unnecessarily on people. I wouldn’t do it even to somebody I do not respect, much less to a customer, who is choosing to spend her/his money with me.

First, I would think that my customer may feel invaded. I know that at least one out of twenty will. Am I saying that I don’t care about them?

Second, why do it? If I am in the airline business, my business is not to spread, support or in any way act on religion. My business is to fly people securely and comfortably, not to enter their privacy with such an intrusive, unnecessary gesture.

Then there is that “assumption of no big thing”. Like… “Aren’t you too picky? After all, it’s OK to be religious, America is a religious country”.

Mmmm…

NO

For me it’s NOT OK. For me religion is the excuse that has justified more killings than any other reason in history. It’s also the excuse used to censor, lie, torture, exclude, persecute, and much more. I don’t care if Alaska Airlines management feels secure and cozy in a homogeneous (bland?), mostly caucasian, judaic-christian group of decision makers. It’s still not OK for me, and for a lot of people like me. For us, America is great not because it is of ANY religion, but rather because it protects my right not to have your religion pushed on me. That’s why I am an American (in my case, it’s by choice, not accident of birth). And this later argument is the most precious of all: it really doesn’t matter what (if any) religion I consume (notice that I don’t even tell you that detail). What matters is that nobody should intrude into anybody else’s personal choice.

Luckily, you and I have a way to act on this. We can fly another airline. In my case, based on the average so far, more than $12,000 a year that can go to whomever cares about this. If you care about it too, think why would you spend thousands of dollars to anybody who thought “This may be offensive to some of my customers… Nah! There are just a few of them!”  This time, you may not be in the minority they are over-running (you may be a catholic, or variations thereof). But next time you may.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 3:29 pm and is filed under nausea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.