Month: November 2006

It is no sur­prise to me how bad­ly air­lines are doing as an indus­try. I fly only infre­quent­ly, but the new air­port secu­ri­ty mea­sures since that fright in the UK a few months ago, the expense of tick­ets and the rack­et of sur­charges if you need to make a reser­va­tion change make me want to dri­ve, no mat­ter how far I’m going. If I fly I’m sup­posed to get to the air­port 3 hours before my flight leaves, car­ry no more liq­uid than 3oz trav­el-sized con­tain­ers in a 1‑quart zip-top bag that I have to dig out of my car­ry-on, along with my lap­top and what­ev­er else they want to look at. And of course there is the shoe-removal, coat-removal, etc. Then, if you make it past secu­ri­ty quick­ly, you’re stuck for 2.5 hours twid­dling your thumbs. And if secu­ri­ty is run­ning slow, you might stand in line for the 3 hours and miss your flight. There is not one redeem­ing qual­i­ty to the expe­ri­ence.

I’m fly­ing to NYC today. My plane leaves at 3:40, so I have to get to Hop­kins at 1. It does­n’t arrive in NYC until 7:02. A 6 hour trip time fly­ing, when I could dri­ve to NYC in 8. Dri­ving would­n’t cost me $500, I could have my car filled with nail clip­pers and bot­tles of water, and could pack my bag any way I chose. In ret­ro­spect I should have dri­ven. Less stress and has­sle on the open road.