So I'm sitting around waiting for my brother's flight to make it in from Salt Lake City so I can drive him home when it occurs to me that I haven't done the blog yet today. So here we go. Obviously, since the flight is more than three hours late, airline efficiency (or lack there of) is weighing heavily on my mind just now.
Now, I understand that times have been tough for the airline industry since 2001. Everything's more expensive, especially aviation fuel, and the added security they need to pay for makes what was an already dicey business (see Pan-Am, demise of) even harder to survive in. I get all that.
But doesn't it seem that we're paying more and more and getting less and less on every flight? The show itself didn't impress me, but the opening sequence of ABC's new Pan-Am really brought home to me that the people flying in the 60's were having a much nicer time than I've ever had on an airplane. Possibly that's the magic of TV clouding my perception, but everything I've heard about flying in that era makes it seem like an adventure, where as these days it has less romance than driving in the back of a pick-up.
Is "business class" the answer? I've never flown up front with the rich people, so maybe I need to get rich and try it sometime. Still, what business class comes with doesn't sound impressive enough to be worth paying an order of magnitude more, but maybe the cumulative effect of all the better stuff adds up to a hugely better experience?
I just don't know.
What I do know, though, is that these days flying sucks, and sucks hard.
I have flown first class, several time and the experience is better, but it's not magical. It makes the actual flight itself much nicer, but the actual process of flying is still terrible.
ReplyDeleteFirst class still gets 3 hour delays, lost luggage and missed connections. It still has pointless security theater, and long lines.
So it cuts out a lot of the terrible, but it's not an adventure.
Well, there's more than a little bit about deregulation in all of this, too.
ReplyDelete"Airfares, when adjusted for inflation, have fallen 25 percent since 1991, and, according to Clifford Winston and Steven Morrison of the Brookings Institution, are 22 percent lower than they would have been had regulation continued (Morrison and Winston 2000). Since passenger deregulation in 1978, airline prices have fallen 44.9 percent in real terms according to the Air Transport Association. Robert Crandall and Jerry Ellig (1997) estimated that when figures are adjusted for changes in quality and amenities, passengers save $19.4 billion dollars per year from airline deregulation. These savings have been passed on to 80 percent of passengers accounting for 85 percent of passenger miles. The real benefits of airline deregulation are being felt today as never before, with LCCs increasingly gaining market share." Link
So, it's really no wonder that it doesn't feel like a glamorous rarity, but rather more bus-like. Bits like delays and so on, are also tied to the vast increase in the amount of air travel arising from deregulation.
Also, w/r/t to business class, for the vast majority of people flying business, it's not worth spending the money for it - rather, it's worth spending their company's money on it.
ReplyDeleteWhich is, when you think about it, a pretty good object lesson when it comes to spending your own money on yourself and spending somebody else's money on yourself.
I agree that circumstances are such that making air travel affordable to more people is, in balance, a good thing.
ReplyDeleteStill, the process of flying is generally such a miserable one that I can't help but pine somewhat for days of yore when it was less of a chore. It's why, time permitting, I prefer to travel by train where, if you get your own sleeper cabin, the experience is much nicer.