This is the lovely little breakfast I enjoy most Monday mornings flying to California with my hubby - a bowl of granola cereal with fruit and juice. Since we are frequent fliers with Alaska, we are regularly getting upgraded for free now to first class - yippee! Definitely makes the travel that much easier.
Anyways, you might also notice the small piece of blue paper on the bottom left of my meal tray: a little prayer card which is handed out with all of Alaska Airlines meals. This one says: "I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name O most high. Psalm 9:2" I don't know why they hand these out, but they bring a little smile to my face and a warm fuzzy feeling to my heart.
However, I did want to research this a bit to understand exactly how and why this tradition was started. I tried Googling "why Alaska Airlines hands out prayer cards" and one of the top search results was a new blog I've been following, The Everywhereist. This lady's site is actually quite similar to my blog: a fellow Seattle-ite who leaves her job to travel with her husband, and document her adventures in the process.
So I click on her link, which leads to me this article where she GOES OFF on these prayer cards!! This small piece of paper clearly got this woman's panties in a MAJOR twist!! She shares about how she wrote a complaint letter to Alaska, and spouted off ideas of using that space on the meal tray for wet-wipes instead so that "like good old J.C., helps reduce chance of spreading leprosy to your fellow passengers." Wow. I think she's clearly missing the point here...
She did however share that Alaska wrote her a letter saying that the prayer cards have been a tradition for the past 20 years, and that "An overwhelming majority of our customers have indicated they appreciate the gesture, and those who don’t are not forced to read it."
Count me in as one who appreciates the gesture! :)
2 comments:
Hey Em - Interesting post. I think a lot of companies use psalms or other religious quotes (Forever 21!). Personally, I'm not crazy about it, but it's true, you're not forced to read it. I clicked through to the Everywhereist's blog - the Tenenbaum house is only a couple of blocks from my place! :) Lil C
Hey Lil C! Thanks for the comment! That's interesting that Forever 21 uses religious quotes too. Totally agree - no one is forced to read or take these cards seriously if they don't want to. :)
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