Data was released this week showing the airline industry to have a lower customer satisfaction rating than even the IRS. There are many reasons for this abysmal rating, including the perception that many airline employees seem uncaring or downright hostile at times. Those are not always friendly skies.

But airline employees are not born that way and airlines don't purposely hire Negative Nellies. I believe that their sometime surly attitude is brought on by surprise! customers, those people they are supposed to serve. If the customer is supposed to be " King," my experience last week on a flight makes me more sympathetic to those airline employees who occasionally advocate regicide.

Rudeness and incivility on the part of airline travelers is old news. With fuller flights these days, what is making many airline employees and passengers crazy is the dawdlers who take forever to park their posteriors when boarding.

Last week, my flight to New York was delayed because many of the snails-masquerading-as-humans were not able to get into their seats in a reasonable amount of time. The boarding agent got frustrated as did many of us who waited and waited for those plodding passengers, who put new meaning into the phrase "leisure travelers."

At the risk of turning this column into a rant, I must say that it's very irritating to see seemingly able-bodied adults, who, upon finding their assigned row, proceed to put their belongings into the overhead compartment, take off their jacket and methodically fold it once and then twice, look around to see where the best spot would be to store that jacket, then reach back into their bag in the overhead and retrieve the bottle of water and maybe a magazine, etc.

All the while, they are blocking the aisle so no one else can pass and they are apparently oblivious to the flight attendants pleading over the P.A. for them to step into the rows so that other passengers can get by.

C' mon, people , it's not that hard. Can we have just a little sense of urgency in boarding the flight?

Here's how it works: anticipate; be efficient; move quickly; be considerate of others. That's it.

The situation is so bad that most of the airlines have hired consultants to experiment with different ways of filling the plane, such as by boarding window-passengers first.

That might shave a few minutes off boarding, but I think there is more that can be done and I have some modest proposals to address the issue, although senior citizens would be exempt, as I aspire to be one someday:

* Have an espresso machine at the gate and require that all passengers have a double shot 10 minutes before boarding.

* Once passengers reach their row, if they can't seat themselves in a half-minute, they must pay everyone else on the plane $1 and have their names posted on slowpoke.com.

* Repeat offenders will be subject to having, "I am a sloth," tattooed on their foreheads.

* Equip flight attendants with light-duty cattle prods.

Once we fix this problem, we'll address those shoppers who wait until their merchandise is all rung up before they pull out their checkbook and then begin to write a check.

Opinions expressed solely are those of the writer. Mike Hoban, of Crown Point, is a senior consultant for an international leadership development and training firm. Send mail to him c/o The Times, or e-mail him at business-at-large@sbcglobal.net.