I know this may sound pretty simplistic, but here goes.
If I drive a car that can go fast, and I can be pulled over and fined/jailed for reckless driving in accordance with the law... I expect, while living in America at least, to have the OPPORTUNITY and the FREEDOM to make the decision of whether or not I choose to keep the peace, break the law and pay the consequences, or do something in between (speed a bit over the speed limit and not get pulled over often).
America, to me, is about a place where everyone is FREE to create that opportunity for themselves. It may be hard for some and easy for others, but we're all equal in that it can be done. So if I get to the point where I can afford a fast car, I still expect to have the choice of what I can do with it.
The beauty of America... sure, an extremely governed, police state offers many things. More protection, more safety, more oversight. However the loss of Freedom to reach such a goal is what I think the founders of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, along with many others through the years were absolutely against. We're not as safe, we're not quite as secure.. but we are free, and that means more to some of us than taking away the.000001 percent chance someone may bomb the plane we're on (etc other examples).
I can't speak for all airlines, but I work for one of the four majors and I can tell you that we only keep one profile of our customers. That's the frequent flyer database, which is becoming more expansive, but is never a mandatory program.
Lots of people think that when they give their email for the receipt to be mailed, it stays in our system, along with their phone, name, etc. No, if you don't put in a frequent flyer number, all it does is put everything into a record that is held until roughly 7 days after you travel. After that, it's microfiched (or databased) and never looked at again without having to go deep through Customer Care (idly, this is why we now charge for past date receipts when business travelers try to call us up a month after their flight expecting us to keep up with their paper-trail cause they decided they now need to turn in their expense report).
However, thanks to the government, as of Dec 1st our agents must now collect all sorts of new info this is going to be databased. Yup, this is the program I'm talking about. It's pretty annoying, our reservations software designers had to implement this and we're rolling it out early tomorrow morning (wasn't even much time to run it through beta, so it could end up messing us up a bit operationally). Honestly, it's rediculous the burdens that the government puts on the airlines. Why should we be concerned with this stuff? This is a capitalist society, if you want to track people, you do it. We need to make money and currently, we're having enough problems with oil and taxes (incidentally, typically 20-25% of the full ticket price you pay is TAXES that go straight to Uncle Sam, which makes us seem like the bad guys for having higher prices).
What other industry has to tax their customers that much? ugh.
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I know this may sound pretty simplistic, but here goes.
.000001 percent chance someone may bomb the plane we're on (etc other examples).
If I drive a car that can go fast, and I can be pulled over and fined/jailed for reckless driving in accordance with the law... I expect, while living in America at least, to have the OPPORTUNITY and the FREEDOM to make the decision of whether or not I choose to keep the peace, break the law and pay the consequences, or do something in between (speed a bit over the speed limit and not get pulled over often).
America, to me, is about a place where everyone is FREE to create that opportunity for themselves. It may be hard for some and easy for others, but we're all equal in that it can be done. So if I get to the point where I can afford a fast car, I still expect to have the choice of what I can do with it.
The beauty of America... sure, an extremely governed, police state offers many things. More protection, more safety, more oversight. However the loss of Freedom to reach such a goal is what I think the founders of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, along with many others through the years were absolutely against. We're not as safe, we're not quite as secure.. but we are free, and that means more to some of us than taking away the
I can't speak for all airlines, but I work for one of the four majors and I can tell you that we only keep one profile of our customers. That's the frequent flyer database, which is becoming more expansive, but is never a mandatory program. Lots of people think that when they give their email for the receipt to be mailed, it stays in our system, along with their phone, name, etc. No, if you don't put in a frequent flyer number, all it does is put everything into a record that is held until roughly 7 days after you travel. After that, it's microfiched (or databased) and never looked at again without having to go deep through Customer Care (idly, this is why we now charge for past date receipts when business travelers try to call us up a month after their flight expecting us to keep up with their paper-trail cause they decided they now need to turn in their expense report). However, thanks to the government, as of Dec 1st our agents must now collect all sorts of new info this is going to be databased. Yup, this is the program I'm talking about. It's pretty annoying, our reservations software designers had to implement this and we're rolling it out early tomorrow morning (wasn't even much time to run it through beta, so it could end up messing us up a bit operationally). Honestly, it's rediculous the burdens that the government puts on the airlines. Why should we be concerned with this stuff? This is a capitalist society, if you want to track people, you do it. We need to make money and currently, we're having enough problems with oil and taxes (incidentally, typically 20-25% of the full ticket price you pay is TAXES that go straight to Uncle Sam, which makes us seem like the bad guys for having higher prices). What other industry has to tax their customers that much? ugh.