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Tipping: Why cabbies and not pilots?

Posted By Tyler Samien On In diatribes,money | 4 Comments

After an abnormally cheerful take-off announcement and a smooth landing on an early morning flight from Knoxville to Chicago, I couldn’t help but wonder: why do we tip certain professions and not others? Why hairdressers and not auto mechanics? Why appliance delivery and not UPS? Why tour guides, bellhops, valet parking, bathroom attendants, and not grocery baggers, librarians, bank tellers, or movie store clerks? Why taxi drivers and waiters but not pilots and flight attendants?

In most cases the answer is tradition. Commercial flight was initially considered high-class travel; the ticket price included full service. Now, with relatively cheap airfare and many regional pilots making less than the average New York City doorman ($32,000), it’s just a matter of outdated etiquette. I can only speak for myself, but a successful landing should receive more gratitude than a successful taxi trip.

Why not get rid of tipping altogether and just pay everyone a living wage? The obvious answer is service incentive, but Michael Lynn of Cornell says the correlation between quality service and tip size is very small. According to Lynn’s research [1], tip sizes are based on things like the weather (higher tips on sunny days), flowers in the waitress’s hair (+17%), and smiley faces on the bill (+18% if you’re a woman, -9% if you’re a man) [source] [2]. Most people know waiters make less than minimum wage and tip even the poorest service. Perhaps my European friends from non-tipping countries are right when they call the practice an artifact of a culture that doesn’t pay its waitstaff a living wage.

If we’re going to use it at all, the tipping system needs an update. Let’s go the capitalistic way. Reward anyone who goes above and beyond his/her job description whether tipping is expected or not. Sometimes genuine appreciation or a note of recognition to the employer is a better reward than dropping a few bills. Tip pennies for miserable service. Refrain from tipping just because the impression is given that a tip is expected. For example, those annoying tip lines on credit card receipts at pizza pickup windows and Starbucks (My translation dictionary says “Barista” is Italian for “bartender” but I say it means “glorified fast food employee”).

Carry this mentality into other spending by buying from companies you want to see flourish or sending political donations. Tip street performers and artists if they contribute to your commute or improve the scenery.

After all this, if you can’t resist feeling bad for some lazy waiter or waitress and want to tip regardless of service, move to Europe where you won’t ruin the whole system for the rest of us. Stay hard-hearted and ignore flowers in the hair and smiley faces on the receipts.

Tyler Samien [5]

Tyler Samien has a BA in English/creative writing from the University of Tennessee. He enjoys writing everything from scathing online reviews of companies that displease him to nostalgic memoirs of childhood experience. His blog, ReluctantChauffeur [5], is about to get interesting as he travels the United States with his wife and goofy-faced puppy.