Marcus White, a pre-sales consultant with General Electric, is facing an existential crisis as the world of privilege associated with his airline tier status is about to come crashing down.
White currently has Star Alliance Gold status through his membership of United’s Mileage Plus program, and has woken up to the awful realisation that the global shutdown in air travel means he won’t be flying enough in the coming year even to retain Premier Silver status with the airline.
White has spent most of his professional career in technical meetings, presentations and workshops all over the world promoting GE’s range of electrical distribution hardware and build services.
Unmarried and with few social contacts outside the office, White’s identity is tied largely to his self-image of the suit clad business traveller towing his cabin baggage through the various concourses of the world’s airports, breezing airily through priority check-in, priority security screening and ultimately into the rarefied environment of the business class lounge.
All of that has come to an abrupt halt as White is forced to work from home, video conferencing with clients in exotic corners of Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia he would previously have expected to visit.
White’s hold on his Gold status has always been precarious at best; his status within GE does not qualify him for business class travel and it is only the frequent nature of his low-earning economy flights which has allowed him continued access to those entitlements which in his eyes, make his life worthwhile.
Colleagues report the numerous gambits employed by White. “From an airline credit card through to paying for the occasional flight to nowhere and back just to retain tier status – you would not believe the lengths he’s gone to.”
“Man, it’s all he ever talks about”, said Brandon Hughes, who periodically shares cubicle space with White. “Doesn’t matter how the conversation begins, it always comes around to how the Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt is better than Singapore’s, the on-call chef in Heathrow, the free highball dispenser in Nagoya, or how he’s just booked a cheap business class flight and got the points for both the flight and the credit card spend.”
“Or he’ll be going on about how people shouldn’t be allowed to take their kids into the lounge with them.”
While the sudden clipping of his wings has been a shock, the truly horrific prospect haunting White is that when air travel eventually resumes he will have to mingle with ordinary people, queuing to check in, queuing for security and then forced to sit on awful steel-and-vinyl seats in a crowded departure lounge with the passengers he’d normally have left behind as he was called for boarding first.
Perhaps worst of all is that he’ll have to pay for the liquor he normally consumes free.
When last sighted, White was sitting on the edge of his bed next to a partially packed suitcase, staring into space.
Wendy Barr, from GE’s Employee Assistance Program is openly worried about his mental health. “We’re fairly certain Marcus hasn’t realised yet that his unused complimentary upgrades won’t rollover.”
Other air travellers are unsympathetic. We asked Sheryl Jackman, who has been in transit for the past 36 hours and is currently waitlisted after her flight to Gatwick was cancelled, for comment.
“Tosser.”