The Aggravation of Commercial Air Travel
Posted on May 19, 2008
Filed Under Charters, Transportation |
One doesn’t have to spend a great deal of time flying these days to reach the point where they despise air travel. Actually, it’s not the travel part so much as the waiting, the lines, the delays, hassles, lost luggage, sardine seats, and so on.
There is little else that can set me off as much as taking the time to fight traffic to arrive an hour and a half early for a flight, just to have it delayed. I end up spending more time waiting around the airport than actually flying. What’s really pathetic is the delays are getting worse, to the point that at some hubs, like those in the northeast, they’re the norm.
Needless to say I’ve got plenty of time sitting around airports, to mull over possible solutions to this very large problem. Once upon a time, I really did enjoy flying, but these days the experience isn’t the same, and the large airports which I tend to frequent are the worst.
On occasion I end up going through a regional airport and it’s like night and day. By and large, you don’t have to arrive hours before your flight, the lines are shorter, and the hassles fewer. Delays don’t happen as often, and when they do the fault is rarely local, but lies instead with some major hub.
So what’s happened to our system of air travel? More travelers, more planes, more flights, all competing for the same airspace, while being managed by antiquated air traffic control technology, are the basic problem.
There is endless debate and finger pointing about resolving it, yet not much happens. It seems to me that modernizing the air traffic control system is a no brainer, and will certainly allow stacking planes closer together, but even doing that will only be a partial solution.
What would make a lot of sense is to make far more use of regional and local airports. Instead of forcing people to connect through hubs, just create more direct flights between regional facilities. There are some small, fuel-efficient jets available these days that would do the trick.
Of course the rental car companies will be lobbying against that as flying into where you actually want to go will negate having to rent a car as often.
Other solutions include going private. Using charter services that fly smaller aircraft were once far out of reach for most folks, but they are becoming a more competitive alternative.
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