Huh – this is probably not good for the travel industry overall:

WASHINGTON (AP) — United Airlines on Monday lost a bid to secure a federal loan guarantee, a fresh setback to the carrier’s efforts to emerge from bankruptcy. The decision by a federal panel barred the airline from making any other attempts to secure government backing.

***Dave pointed me at the Senate testimony of Patricia Friend, president of a flight attendants’ association:

We are trained to fight fires in the air, to administer first aid, to evacuate an aircraft in case of an accident, deal with abusive passengers and to give comfort. We receive comprehensive training in how to handle all these situations onboard the aircraft and are now officially recognized for these roles through FAA certification. Unbelievably, almost three years after the horrific events of September 11th, 2001 we still have not been trained to appropriately handle a security crisis onboard on our airplanes.

Okay, this is a shocking lapse, and something needs to be done about it. Strangely, I know a little tiny bit about the training process for flight attendants at a major airline. And she’s right – they’re not training attendants to be front-line defense against hijackers.

However, their hair and makeup will be impeccable.

Admittedly, my intel is really old. Many years ago, I was sent for training on the SABRE reservation system to American Airlines’ Dallas training center. This was the same place flight attendant trainees were undergoing their 6-8 week training courses, and we scruffy travel agent ladies of a variety of certain ages and shapes didn’t mix much with the FA trainees. They were so inhumanly perfectly coiffed and buffed and polished, I called them “laminates,” and the name stuck.

In spite of their training in dealing with in flight emergencies, fires, and preparing for emergency landings, the flight attendant trainees I saw were most concerned with maintaining an incredibly obsessive standard of personal appearance. This was because they could receive demerits or even be bounced from training at any time if they appeared in class or anywhere during the day with an unironed blouse or mussed hair. My instructor told me the sad tale of a girl from a previous session that had graduated, just barely, and was on her way to the cocktail party to celebrate the end of training. She had a run in her stocking (yes, they wore skirts and stockings everywhere, all day every day) but went on to the party, thinking it didn’t matter anymore.

Well, it did – the demerit was enough to bounce her out of the program, and she was gone.

So anyway, I would have hoped that some things had changed since the bad old days (hey, “Dallas” was still on the air, and Ronnie was President, there’s your clue), but I have this feeling that they haven’t even instituted self-defense classes for FA’s at most airlines. Not to mention change the training so that FA’s no longer automatically cooperate with hijackers.

News flash: they should. And they should be teaching them tactics on how to quickly and effectively organize passengers into a group that can protect the cockpit from intruders.