We’ve talked many times here about how the act of travel has lost its glamor, is no longer fun for the frequent traveler. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, life isn’t so glamorous on the other side of the travel counter.

Airlines used to offer prestigious jobs with good wages and coveted flight benefits. Now, in the aftermath of aggressive cutbacks, a growing number of airline jobs are more akin to those at a fast-food restaurant. The pay is low, the work is tough and, in a new twist, airlines are having trouble hanging onto workers and finding new ones. “What once was a glamorous job…doesn’t look so good any more,” says Andy Roberts, executive vice president of operations for Northwest Airlines Corp. Mr. Roberts says Northwest and its peers used to have a list of applicants “as long as your arm.” Now, “we have to go seek them out, even pilots.”

Southwest Airlines’ ramp workers start at $8.75/hr. Northwest Airlines ramp workers start at $9/hr. Wal-Mart sales associates average, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers (who are trying to organize them) $8.23/hr. Some may say that working in a Wal-Mart is a soul-numbing job. However, working outside on the ramp in Chicago or Minneapolis in January is a body-numbing job, and not for a whole lot more money. The resulting short staffing, absenteeism, and high turnover just give us three more reasons not to check luggage.

But even positions where there seem to be enough job applicants — pilots, flight attendants — could the quality of the applicants be slipping. A discussion thread on the article at airliners.net suggests that regional airlines are reducing their minimum hiring requirements and that the quality of new flight attendants is leaving something to be desired.

I think these articles are true. I’ve been with AA for 19 years, and the quality of many people hired in the past 7 years has steadily declined. I fly with flight attendants who NEVER would have been hired when I was hired. Although you can’t generalize, because there are some good ones out there, I have seen many a newer hired flight attendant sitting reading a book or magazine instead of answering call lights and taking care of passenger needs. If you say something to them, they always say, “They don’t pay me enough to do that!”

No wonder that in the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index released by University of Michigan this week, U.S. airlines scored 63 out of a possible 100. It’s their worst score in seven years and, to emphasize the point, nine points worse than the US federal government… and two points worse than the Internal Revenue Service. There’s something for the suits to put on their bonus justification write-ups.