&lt;div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oXUfk1NY_gY/TmU1P9KIMNI/AAAAAAAABZM/_FeZultimJY/s1600/American+boarding.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;320&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oXUfk1NY_gY/TmU1P9KIMNI/AAAAAAAABZM/_FeZultimJY/s320/American+boarding.jpg&quot; width=&quot;318&quot; alt=&quot;American+boarding.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I have to laugh at the timing - in the span of two days two very different air travel stories appeared in The New York Times.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first, in Sunday&#039;s Travel Section and &lt;a href=&quot;http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/travel/elite-status-on-airlines-for-a-fee.html?ref=todayspaper&quot;&gt;reported by Michelle Higgins&lt;/a&gt; reveals that for a fee, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aa.com/&quot;&gt;American Airlines&lt;/a&gt; is offering to treat its passengers like VIPs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On a recent flight, Higgins and her husband coughed up $200 for the airline&#039;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/fivestarservice.jsp&quot;&gt;Five Star Service program&lt;/a&gt;, which entitled them and their young child to an escort from curbside at New York&#039;s LaGuardia airport through bag check, into a lounge with snacks and finally, priority boarding. In assessing the program, Higgins wrote that she bought a &quot;civilized airport experience.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; we reached a point where civility comes with price tag? Well that depends.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In Tuesday&#039;s Business section, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/business/emirates-airline-bets-on-glamour.html?pagewanted=1&amp;#38;_r=1&quot;&gt;I report &lt;/a&gt;that some airlines are heavily invested in making their passengers feel special &lt;i&gt;at no additional charge&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;table cellpadding=&quot;0&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vsFX7AJQMEI/TmU6lUJI6QI/AAAAAAAABZU/Oh_mnVarExA/s1600/Flight+attendants+luft+2.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vsFX7AJQMEI/TmU6lUJI6QI/AAAAAAAABZU/Oh_mnVarExA/s320/Flight+attendants+luft+2.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; alt=&quot;Flight+attendants+luft+2.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;i&gt;A smiling Lufthansa flight attendant serves coach passengers&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;My story focuses on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.emirates.com/us/english/index.aspx?cid=GoogleSEM07USA562910&amp;#38;pkw=yes&quot;&gt;Emirates&lt;/a&gt;, the Dubai-based carrier that&#039;s got a number of other airlines on the run. But other airlines have the same idea; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.singaporeair.com/&quot;&gt;Singapore&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ar.jal.com/&quot;&gt;Japan Airline&lt;/a&gt;s, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airnewzealand.com/&quot;&gt;Air New Zealand&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;/&quot;&gt;Virgin Atlantic&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lufthansa.com/us/en/homepage&quot;&gt;Lufthansa&lt;/a&gt; are all&nbsp; known for adopting a strategy that treating customers right is just good business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For a week this summer, Emirates allowed me to attend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/english/Careers_Overview/cabin_crew/default.aspx&quot;&gt;flight attendant school&lt;/a&gt; where, dressed in a uniform just like the adorable twenty-something students all around, I learned how to open the airplane door in an emergency, help a handicapped person into a seat, take down a disruptive passenger and deploy the evacuation slide. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And while a lot of what a flight attendant needs to know is &lt;a href=&quot;http://gohowknowhow.com/?p=149&quot;&gt;how to save their passengers&#039; lives if necessary&lt;/a&gt;, an equal amount of attention was paid to teaching them how to put themselves in the frame of mind of a traveler and &lt;a href=&quot;http://christinenegroni.blogspot.com/2011/07/flight-attendants-flying-high-and-on-tv.html&quot;&gt;how to become the face of the airline&lt;/a&gt; they would want to fly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These airlines seem to think it is important to maintain standards - the opposite of dial-up-to-VIP service&nbsp; - which is an outright declaration that unless travelers pay, they&#039;re gonna get something less.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;table cellpadding=&quot;0&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uOzzcVITneA/TmU_fRillUI/AAAAAAAABZY/a3p6D5Ie9nk/s1600/flight+attendant+emir.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;320&quot; src=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uOzzcVITneA/TmU_fRillUI/AAAAAAAABZY/a3p6D5Ie9nk/s320/flight+attendant+emir.jpg&quot; width=&quot;273&quot; alt=&quot;flight+attendant+emir.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;i&gt;An Emirates attendant on the A380&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;When &quot;a civilized airport experience&quot; becomes another ala carte menu item for passengers, the incentive for airlines to make  things better will disappear faster than an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Apple-touch-Generation-NEWEST-MODEL/dp/B001FA1O0O?ie=UTF8&amp;#38;tag=flyiless-20&amp;#38;link_code=btl&amp;#38;camp=213689&amp;#38;creative=392969&quot;&gt;iPod&lt;/a&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=flyiless-20&amp;#38;l=btl&amp;#38;camp=213689&amp;#38;creative=392969&amp;#38;o=1&amp;#38;a=B001FA1O0O&quot; style=&quot;border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; /&gt; left in the airplane  seat pocket. Why fix a problem if travelers can be convinced to &lt;i&gt;buy &lt;/i&gt;the solution?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Airlines considering this new ancillary revenue stream: Beware. The  companies that still take pride in service are likely to use it against you. They&#039;ve already learned that money spent on training polite, courteous,  people-pleasing employees not only returns to the bottom line, it goes a long way towards creating a civilized experience that everyone can enjoy.&lt;div&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9133703253863123050-3012294969060032501?l=christinenegroni.blogspot.com&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/CllGQ/~4/oH0efNX1ReU&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; alt=&quot;oH0efNX1ReU&quot; /&gt;