Last week I was travelling from Durham, North Carolina to Oakland, California, via Nashville, Tennessee. These are my observations:
Durham Airport
Highly recommended that all people (passengers, airline crew, and airport workers) wear a mask and a glove at the airport. Only about 20% of the passengers wore a mask. All airline crew wore a mask. All airport workers wore a mask and gloves. No passenger, except one idiot, wore gloves. That was me.
Nashville Airport
Same story as in Durham Airport.
Inside the Aircraft
All passengers were seated either in the window seat or aisle seat. Middle seats were kept vacant. Flight Stewards were lucky. During this Covid stuff, passengers will not be served any coffee or tea or soft drinks or alcohol or food. Only purified drinking water. However, the airline I traveled served us snacks along with water.
Flying time Durham to Nashville is one hour and ten minutes. Nashville to Oakland is 4 hours and 25 minutes. Boring flights. No one spoke to other passengers.
Oakland Airport
Highly recommended that all people (passengers, airline crew, and airport workers) wear a mask and a glove at the airport. Everyone was wearing a mask. No one except airport workers wore gloves.
Taking Advantage of the Situation
Airlines. Stopped providing coffee, tea, and soft drinks. But did not reduce the price.
Restaurants. There is an Indian restaurant in our area. Their lunch package includes rice, naan, 2 side dishes (veg or non veg), salad, sweet, raita, and pickle. I went there yesterday to take out a lunch package. Price is the same. But no salad, sweet, raita, and pickle. I asked the guy why these items were not included. He said corona virus. I asked him the connection between these 4 and the corona virus. He did not reply. Only the Indian smile.
Charity scam. Got couple of calls for donations. Some total stranger, out of the blue, asking for money over the phone? No way.
Hoarding, 50% of the shelves in any departmental store are empty.
Hoarding, 50% of the shelves in any departmental store are empty.
I think it's OK for restaurants, airlines and other service providers to slightly overcharge during these times. Their workers are more exposed trying to serve us. Only, I am not sure if the increase in profits are getting transferred to the workers too.
ReplyDeleteDestination Infinity
Thanks for your comments Rajesh. Restaurant workers in USA are paid differently than other countries. They are paid ZERO amount or just a token $2 per hour. Their main income is from the tips left by the customers. Sit-down eating has been stopped. Only delivery or take out. So no tips for them and no income for them from the restaurant owners.
DeleteAre the airlines charging you more for operating the planes at one third of seats kept vacant on safety considerations?If not, you should not grudge the non-reduction of fares for not supplying snacks/meals.
ReplyDeleteRestaurants are playing safe by not supplying uncooked food like salad and raita in these times.
Surprising that people are not wearing protective gears like masks or gloves in airports.Are they not made mandatory?
Thanks for your comments Mr. KP. No one knows how the airlines are charging. Point A to Point B will be $100 today, and $140 next week, and back to $110 after 3 days. Experts say it is cheaper to buy on a Tuesday. I have no idea why.
DeleteRestaurants, and that too Indian restaurants in USA, care for the safety of customers? Yes, for sure. (Sarcasm)
After seeing television visuals from various countries, including the US, I am not surprised that many passengers were not following the rules.
ReplyDeleteThe takeaway from the restaurant had fewer things in it probably because they are saving on the cost of those things like sweet, to make up for the loss they have incurred during the past couple of months.
Thanks for your comments Pradeep. You could be right. I didn't think of it. These restaurants may be saving money to make up for the loss.
DeleteThey may try to extract benefits to compensate their loss because of the non-operational days as well as the customer-decrease, may it be flights, shops or restaurants. It is a matter of concern and confusion also for the authorities, wearing or evading masks. Anyway if mandatory, definitely visages will be half-covered.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are safe . Much love
ReplyDeleteThat is bad, but I guess most of the business want to make hay while sun shines! Lot of people including hospitals are minting most from the opportunity. About taking precautions, oh God, people have been so careless.
ReplyDelete