Why Fly? Suffering Travelers Happily Ground Themselves
Do you recall your first airline trip? The roar of the engines, lifting off, doting flight attendants that sweetly asked your name and handed you some plastic clip-on wings? Who knew that was as good as commercial aviation would ever get? Sure, today we have adult perks.
You can booze yourself silly in business class, but this is to dull the pain of withstanding long security lines, surly airline personnel, and wasted minutes and even hours, idling on the tarmac, with nary an apology.
Air passage has become very tiresome and daunting, so much so that many folks are finally taking travel alternatives seriously.
Trade show attendance is diminishing.
Companies are cutting expense accounts with eagle eyes and sharp talons.
And webinars and teleconferences are finally coming into their own, becoming profit centers for otherwise struggling educational institutions and training companies.
Certainly, there are those must-fly situations that remain.
Tele-funerals have not yet caught on, and sometimes you simply have to jet back to the home office to receive your pink slip and to clean out your desk.
I decided to cut back on road trips well before that fateful flight from Venice, Italy to Philadelphia, when not a single toilet was operable.
Despite the fact that I was upgraded to Business or First Class about 95% of the time, my overall stress from flying was soaring.
Every action by airlines seemed to make the experience worse.
Carry-on fascists made it impossible for me to avoid baggage claim and lost luggage.
On board security measures made stretching ones legs, mid-flight, appear to be a potential terrorist threat.
"Food service," if it ever rightly earned that title, was becoming increasingly perfunctory, reluctant, and life threatening.
But you earn frequent flyer miles for putting up with the negatives, right? The last thing you want to do, after suffering through flight after flight is to subject yourself to the same torment "for free!" The airlines always bemoaned the unpredictable price of fuel as being the greatest impediment to achieving profits.
Now, they can blame themselves for killing off passenger demand through their indifferent and increasingly hostile service practices.
Plus, more of us are discovering that there are finer experiences than "being there," if going there is as painful as carriers have made the journey.
Teleconference, anyone?
You can booze yourself silly in business class, but this is to dull the pain of withstanding long security lines, surly airline personnel, and wasted minutes and even hours, idling on the tarmac, with nary an apology.
Air passage has become very tiresome and daunting, so much so that many folks are finally taking travel alternatives seriously.
Trade show attendance is diminishing.
Companies are cutting expense accounts with eagle eyes and sharp talons.
And webinars and teleconferences are finally coming into their own, becoming profit centers for otherwise struggling educational institutions and training companies.
Certainly, there are those must-fly situations that remain.
Tele-funerals have not yet caught on, and sometimes you simply have to jet back to the home office to receive your pink slip and to clean out your desk.
I decided to cut back on road trips well before that fateful flight from Venice, Italy to Philadelphia, when not a single toilet was operable.
Despite the fact that I was upgraded to Business or First Class about 95% of the time, my overall stress from flying was soaring.
Every action by airlines seemed to make the experience worse.
Carry-on fascists made it impossible for me to avoid baggage claim and lost luggage.
On board security measures made stretching ones legs, mid-flight, appear to be a potential terrorist threat.
"Food service," if it ever rightly earned that title, was becoming increasingly perfunctory, reluctant, and life threatening.
But you earn frequent flyer miles for putting up with the negatives, right? The last thing you want to do, after suffering through flight after flight is to subject yourself to the same torment "for free!" The airlines always bemoaned the unpredictable price of fuel as being the greatest impediment to achieving profits.
Now, they can blame themselves for killing off passenger demand through their indifferent and increasingly hostile service practices.
Plus, more of us are discovering that there are finer experiences than "being there," if going there is as painful as carriers have made the journey.
Teleconference, anyone?
Source...