A few years back, I wrote a nationally syndicated travel column which focused a lot of attention on the airlines, not surprisingly. And there was a mantra that accompanied most of those pieces. It was, simply put, “the airlines are not your friends.” Of course, if you spend six figures with them each year, they are your friend, so go ahead and skip this comment if you fall into that elite category.

For the rest of us, it an important thing to keep in mind whether you’re traveling with the airlines or thinking about it. My first suggestion to you is that if you have any other alternative to flying, take it. Take the car, take the train, take the bus, the bike, the ice skates, run, walk … well, you get the idea. If you have no choice, brace yourself for the latest headline: America’s airlines think coach passengers have it too comfortable back there in steerage; they want to see if they can’t squeeze you just a little more. And they can.

Today’s Wall Street Journal, which regularly offers some savvy travel counsel, reports that the airlines are shrinking the size of coach seats so they can fit another seat across each row. In other words, so much for those roomy 18″ wide seats — they are shrinking to 17″. And Happy Thanksgiving to you.

As a diagram in the WSJ shows, a fairly typical movie theater seat offers you anywhere from 7-8″ more width. Amtrak has over 3″ extra on its trains. And this squeeze is not just for domestic flights — it’s for those long-haul overseas trips, you know, like 15 hours to Hong Kong.

And here’s the real grabber for me: the airlines say it doesn’t matter because customers will be so distracted by the entertainment and the food! I swear to you, I’m not making that up. “With food and TV, people are mesmerized,” says one of them. Really? Crammed into an unsittable seat, shoulder to shoulder with an unforgiving (and larger sized) neighbor, the satisfied customer in front of you reclining into your chest, you are mesmerized by food and TV? Who in their right mind is mesmerized by TV in their big recliner at home? And food? Seriously? Count back to the last good coach meal you enjoyed on any trip. And keep counting.

On top of that, of course, there are the ever-burgeoning fees for everything from flight changes to baggage, tightly packed planes that foretell problems when bad weather strands passenger this winter, minimal service, sharply rising airfares, and …. well, you probably already know the drill. So let me just repeat again: the airlines are not your friends. The airlines are not your friends The airlines are not your friends.