Thoughts on the state of air travel in 2010…

As I sit here in my seventh hour on standby at the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta-Hartsfield International, there could not be a better time to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of modern air travel. Though many new amenities have been added to both the airplanes and airports, we have seen many of the older, comforting conveniences of the travel experience become compromised by our fight against terrorism and a struggling economy. That being said, the option to travel by air is also one that my generation, and especially the younger folks, take for granted for its overall expediency and savings on gas, room, and rest stop hotels. The travel experience that has arisen as a result of our modern day compromises can work well as long as there is no bad weather or lack of work ethic exhibited by airline and airport employees. Therein lies the problem.

In my experiences, I have encountered virtually every airport scenario; from trips that went off without a hitch, to instances of pure human error and complications with simple itineraries. But let’s take a look at today’s situation, one that is out of the control of the airline I am traveling, but still a scenario that occurs more and more due to a significant reduction in the number of flights airlines are taking in today’s economy. Due to bad weather in Atlanta, a ground stop was put on planes headed to AHI, therefore my flight sat idle for an hour on the tarmac in my departure city of San Antonio, Texas. With an hour between flights, my day was doomed even before takeoff, and when I arrived in Atlanta the plane to my destination, San Juan, Puerto Rico, was already pushing away from the gate. Upon seeking help from the airline, I was placed on standby for a flight eight hours later with no guarantee of reaching the destination I paid good money to reach.

This situation occurs every day across the world, as the reduction in flights has led to more and more standby instead of guaranteed seats. Despite having booked months in advance, a one hour ground stop was capable of ruining mine and the at least 60 or more other people who missed their connections and were not given a real ticket to continue their paired journey. In addition, should I not be given a ticket for the flight to the island, I will be forced to stay overnight and leave in the morning, costing not only a day of my trip, but also causing me to secure reservations on a weekend in Atlanta. I have nothing but love for the city, but for many travelers the lack of backup flights to ensure the arrival of paid customers is cause for much disdain for the airlines and for the respectability of air travel in general.

Add to this the fact that we have no choice but to go through the maze of security checks and long lines at customs because of the awful actions of others, and the traveler who goes through my experience has reason to complain about the nature of the current system. To their credit, the employees of the airline I am traveling on have done everything in their power to rectify the situation, but the bottom lines is that air travel is not the experience that it could and can be. In no other industry can you have a consumer not receive the service they paid a pretty penny for and get by with an “I’m sorry” and a rebooking to an inconvenient time or rerouted through an obscure destination as I was today. To be frank, there doesn’t seem to be a good solution to the problem at the present time. The fact that we depend so heavily on oil to power up our planes has put a stranglehold on tight budgets that could better go towards improving the experience, not cutting down on it at the expense of the consumer.

On the plane is no different. Airlines have moved towards an a la carte system for amenities, leaving much to be desired when compared to the steep cost of flying today. Instead of compensating for a lack of ready planes and pilots to ensure the soundness of itineraries, the airlines, for the most part, have decided that they can easily nickel and dime passengers at 35,000 feet. These growing practices, and the vastly unpopular checked baggage fees, have left the air travel consumer in the precarious position of having no choice but to deal with a shareholder first system of travel.

Though there is no doubt in my mind that the airlines will recover under a greener fueling system and an improving economic outlook, in the meantime the airline consumer is getting an increasingly raw deal. Sure, there have been times where my trips have been run to perfection, but the trend has been towards frustration and delay. More than half the time I have flown in the past two years, I have either faced a long weather related delay, or some other form of inconvenience for which the airlines have no good solution. It’s always something different, and it usually stems from human error in scheduling and delivering upon that itinerary. In our capitalist society, we expect those at the top to represent the best and brightest of their industry. In this department, airline travel has suffered greatly in a post 9/11 world. It should be interesting to see where the quality of air travel goes from here, but there is no doubt that it must improve to an acceptable level of dependability and bang for buck..

Thoughts on ignorance meets air travel...

In 2010 America, ignorance and cynicism are the regrettable offspring of fear and arrogance. As we saw today, an American passenger on a Delta flight from Paris to Atlanta decided it would be a good idea to speak out loud about explosives, which did not exist, thus causing US Air Marshall’s to detain the individual at fault. The resulting diversion of the flight to Bangor, Maine was ultimately deemed necessary due to a need to screen the airlines luggage. All 234 passengers, and the 13 crew members aboard, were forced to go back through US Customs and bag screening while the suspect confessed to authorities that he had no explosives and was kidding around. Authorities found him to be truthful, and his background check came up clean. This kind of idiotic, ignorant behavior is a root cause for frustration amongst rational, reasonable, and capable Americans who only seek to reach their destination in a peaceful, non-confrontational manner.

Most people on everyday commercial flights are courteous, kind, purposeful individuals who understand the security concerns that our nation and airlines face, and they have no desire to contribute to these problems. Unfortunately, it only takes one, cynical, ignorant minded individual to make the travel experience in our country more trying than it already is in a post 9/11 era. Still, some people don’t quite get it. Even worse, it is folks who know well that they are breaking the law, but somehow think they are comedians with a license to ruin other people’s days. Every time I travel, I see it. There’s the person who doesn’t understand the need for the TSA, or the person who gets wasted at the bar, and suddenly becomes a tough guy in the security line and on the airplane. These are the same people who cut in line on the way out of the plane because they believe that their urgency to get out of the plane is more important than the stranger next to them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to air travel, we are trapped in a tube 30,000 feet in the air with individuals who may or may not be completely oblivious to common courtesy or travel protocol. I am often shocked to see how ignorant some people are to the tense security environment we face today. It is genuinely upsetting for most people to see grown adults who behave worse than three year old kids when it comes to their actions in airports and airplanes. That being said, it’s well known that traveling by air in 2010 is nothing short of a lottery system. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Today’s news was a prime example of the latter.

Thoughts on airline baggage fees and taxes

For those choosing to travel by commercial airline, whether for business, pleasure, or for personal matters, the past decade has been marked by a flood of inconvenient policy changes implemented by leaders in the airline industry. With security threats, weather delays, and flight cancellations overwhelming the mainstream travel conversation, an infuriating phenomenon has occurred directly under our collective noses. These pesky “baggage taxes,” which popped up in response to high gas prices in 2008, have effectively gouged travelers out of billions of dollars over the past three years. In addition, traditionally included amenities, such as beverage service and snacks, are disappearing in favor of increasingly expensive, nickel and dime styled “a la carte” cabin services.

On top of the baggage and a la carte fees, the airline industry taxes its customers at a rate that averages nearly 20% of the cost of a ticket to fly. The average cost in taxes for a $300 dollar flight is approximately $65, which when you add that to the cost of checking bags, makes traveling by air in 2010 a modern day exercise in being ripped off. Consider that as of today there are four separate taxes on a typical flight within the United States. There’s the standard 7.5% Federal Ticket (Excise) Tax, which should really be where the taxes end, the Passenger Facility Charge, the Federal Flight Segment Tax, and the Federal Security Surcharge. All of these taxes are applied at the time of purchase, adding a sting to any great deal one might find online or through a travel agent.

To make matters worse, the increasing bag fees and taxes only mark the beginning of the hollowing out of the intrinsic value of a plane ticket. For example, Spirit Airlines is pondering charging for carry-on baggage, and Ryanair, based out of Dublin, Ireland is planning to charge 1 Euro or 1 British Pound (about $1.33 or $1.52) for using the bathroom on flights lasting one hour or less. If, as was the case with checked baggage fees, other airlines follow suit and start charging for every amenity in the cabin, there will be a huge devaluation to the value of a ticket. The ticket used to mean a beverage and a meal, and one bag checked with no charge, now the only aspect of travel covered by an airline ticket is the travel itself. Only a few airlines, such as Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue, seem to truly value their mission statements, and the implicit services that should come with the price of a ticket.

Going forward, other airlines need to take a hard look at what they stand for. Are they just buses in the air, with peddlers for crews? Or is quality of service still important? Do they value the experience of the passenger, or just the zero’s on their bottom lines? Is a once great industry becoming trivialized by the in air gimmicks of its leading airlines? Going forward, the future of the airlines depends on their willingness to return to an era where the trust of the customer matters. As is the case with many aspects of our society, the time has come to end the worst practices of the airline industry.