From MediaStudies

Trang Pham

HMC, graduating Fall '08
Media track: Digital/Electronic Media

Final Project

I had to take a different route with my project after I received a terrible phone call. So my other project is on the back burner for now. But for those who didn't get a chance to see my final project, the video is viewable on YouTube.

Project Idea

I am working on a semester long documentary about the airline industry. The central idea for my video is that in these times of low economic prosperity, the airline industry should be rewarding us for continued use of their service; instead, we are penalized. Airlines and other companies see a decrease in profits since the economy is doing so poorly. So they raised the prices of the tickets and cut down the routes to off-set some of the damages. However, are those actions enough? [This is where I really feedback, because I feel like it's a big assumption to make.] To make money, they came up with a campaign to restrict carry-on items. If liquids are really used to make explosive devices, how does restricting one bag per person with 3 ounces or less containers prevent something like that from happening? Empty bottles can be brought on to the plane, and 3 ounces or less can quickly be combined to fill up one regular-sized bottle. With this restriction in place, customers are required to purchase their liquids inside the security gate at an inflated price, thus increasing business.

But things didn't end there. The airline industry now charges an arm and a leg for everything: from changing tickets (charges are so high that sometimes customers cannot get their money back) to check baggage to even food, and get this: water! What was once a complimentary and an essential service now requires passengers to carry extra cash when boarding the plane. What if one doesn't have money on hand? Would one have to resort to drinking the non-potable water in the lavatories? [I have a personal story resulting to this that I will probably use in my video.] And with the increase in luggage fees, there has been a spike in carry-on baggage (pretty soon, they will probably incur fees, too), and with that leads to an increase in loading time. More and more airlines require passengers to show up at the airport much earlier than when their plane is scheduled to depart so that they could go through security and load their luggage. [Here, I want to find some stats on US vs. other country policy on baggage allowance and boarding time.]

If I have more time, I would also like to research more into the stopover cities (hubs) that most airlines use these days to cut down the routes between cities. I've noticed that my plane rides have an increase in taxi-ing time. I would really love to find some information on the number of flights delayed from these cities (possibly) due to lack of runway and gate space. My flight from Charlotte to Phoenix about a week ago was supposed to be twenty minutes early, but because we weren't given the okay to land (storms, they said, but the sky was clear from where I could see), we were circling in the air for about another hour.

All of these are definitely in the preliminary stage, but the reason why I want to do this documentary is so that I could inform people of the airline crisis going on today, and that they should not believe everything they are fed from the airline industry. I do have some questions of ethics because this documentary will be completely one-sided: from the consumer point of view. I've already started recording some images the last time I was on a plane, and I did it secretly, so it's definitely not the most ethical thing to do. However, I only had a point-and-shoot, so I will probably not going to be able to use those footages anyway. I want to call these airlines and ask them a few questions, but record our conversations so I could use the sound byte, where possible. I would love any sort of feedback on this so that I could really hammer out my idea.

Currently, my (rough) schedule for this documentary is as follows:

- September 29: Completed idea with list of necessary footage

- October 19: Capture all necessary footage (interviews, etc.)

- October 27: Rough draft

- November 15: Second draft

- December 10: Final project turned in