Please feel free to mail me millions of dollars to invest in my new venture. I'm designing the perfect airline, starting with a set of standards no current airline can meet.

I'm going back to the good old-fashioned idea that, if you treat people well, they'll be loyal customers. But I'm not trying to build a golden albatross; We know that the "all first class" business model is flawed. At least, no airline using the "all first" gimmick has ever turned a buck. Conversely, the "sell cheap seats and treat people like cows" business model has been very successful. In the recent industry depression, the only airlines making money were airlines that cater to members of the Jerry Springer Fan Club.

But these trends, ah, these trends... These trends tend to turn around and bite. I'm convinced that business travelers have had just about enough of being treated like crap. They're ready for an airline that doesn't taxi past the trailer park beside taxiway Bravo to pick-up more passengers. Business travelers are begging for an airline that treats professionals like professionals.

As you read my list of standards below, don't think "all first." In fact don't even think about how much these things would cost. Think in terms of guaranteed load factor. I'm designing the airline that I—and every other professional I know—would fly on every trip, even if it cost an extra $50 or $100. Our sanity is worth that much.

Frank's List of New Airline Standards

1. Act like you give a damn about safety.
   Don't sing little songs about the safety briefing. If you want to sing a little song, sing it afterward. Don't let jerks in the exit row carry-on a conversation during the safety briefing. Irresponsible people have no place in an exit row!   Think about it!   In fact, why not offer a special, day-long seminar on aircraft safety procedures for frequent travelers? Give these extra-informed passengers discounted seats in the exit rows. As it stands now, in an emergency, too much depends on the initiative of dopey passengers and song-singing flight attendants. This has to scare the wits out of anybody with a brain.

2. Stop playing pricing games.
   Airlines, I think you'd be shocked at the resulting load factor if you charged a reasonable fee for tickets, instead of playing these freakish timing games. If I knew of an airline that charged a moderate price for tickets all the time, I'd never fly with anyone else.

3. After establishing fair ticket prices, stop the nickel-and-dime antics.
   If you can't afford to serve a can of beer or let people listen to music without charging $5.00, don't offer alcohol or in-flight entertainment. Do you realize how much your airline resembles a flea market when your "safety first" flight attendants roam the aisles hawking headsets?

4. Give hungry people a sandwich.
   Let's stop the debates about whether to serve food and whether to charge extra for food. Back-up a step; Stop trying to be fancy. Stop trying to impress people with a selection of three supposedly hot and ubiquitously mediocre entrees. Offer people a decent sandwich. You don't need to get fancy or complicated or expensive here. But if a flight is more than a few hours long, some people might get hungry. They are your customers. You should give them a nice snack.

5. Pull out those agonizing contrivances you call "seats" and install real seats.
   Stop wedging me into a chair so chintzy that I'm in real danger of developing blood clots. Don't make me fight over an armrest; Give me my own. Don't let the person next to me spill into my seat. If you can't comfortably seat six people abreast, make it five-abreast seating. And put a few inches between my knees and the seat ahead of me. (On Air Tran, the seats are so close that some passengers can't put their tray tables down!) Yes, I know you'll have fewer seats as a result. You'll sell all of them, and there's a benefit to that.

6. Assign seats.
   I'm sorry, Southwest, but that whole run-for-your-seat nightmare rewards your worst customers; people who have nothing better to do in life than hang around a boarding gate. For this reason alone, professional people avoid Southwest.

7. Put parents with children in a special area.
   I love kids. But if I wanted to listen to a fire siren at close range—or to have my chair kicked—for four hours straight, I'd buy tickets for those activities instead of buying airline tickets. I don't think it's out-of-line to suggest that kids deserve their own area; churches and car dealers aren't reluctant to find them a special place. And while we're on the subject, don't let parents hold infants; put them in car seats. Make that a rule. Severe turbulence is dangerous, and letting people hold infants through it is outrageously irresponsible.

8. If you're going to have carry-on baggage rules, enforce them.
   When you run out of overhead bin space, it's because you let a circus-load of clowns pig-up every square inch with steamer trunks and whiskey barrels. Those of us who carry a light load onto the airplane shouldn't have to compete for space, or worry that some buffoon's cedar chest is sitting atop our computer case.

9. Keep me informed.
   When the airplane sits at the gate for a half hour after scheduled pushback, have you noticed that passengers start asking the flight attendants what's going on? Maybe you should just pick-up a microphone and tell everybody. In fact, you could do this even before people start asking, which would be the polite thing to do. And enroute, any airline with a GPS moving map display is a true friend of mine.

10. If you screw up, fix it.
    I'm very tired of paying out-of-pocket for airline fumbles. I'm annoyed that you blame all of your mistakes on something or somebody else. When a good customer is inconvenienced or disrespected, stop arguing and do what any other service-based business would do: make it right.

This is my first cut at new airline standards. I may have more.

If you were expecting me to grouse about connecting flights, surprise! I have nothing against the hub-and-spoke model. The efficiency is obvious. If an airline treated me well, and I didn't mournfully dread every flight segment, a connecting flight wouldn't be a big deal. In fact, in my airline, we'll hub at underserved airports in three or four mid-latitude cities. We'll avoid hubs at congested, bad-weather airports for obvious reasons (that the existing airlines still don't seem to understand).

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