Air Sick

I’m flying to San Francisco tomorrow and I should be thrilled; escaping the heat and humidity is high on my list of priorities and it’s a real vacation with limited responsibilities. Instead I feel something akin to dread, owing to the fact that travel has been insanely difficult this summer. According to figures cited in the Wall Street Journal by the Department of Transportation, June was the second worst month ever for delays and cancellations.  We’ve all heard the stories of the flights delayed for five hours or more but all flights are delayed more than 25% of the time and if you’re flying on Delta, Jet Blue or American Airlines, your chances of taking off on time are about 50/50.  There seem to be three explanations for the problems: We’ve got an aging air traffic system,  more passengers and an unusually high incidence of adverse weather conditions. Patience is counseled.  Hey, I understand.  More of us are traveling for work and for play and flying is the best way – sometimes the only way – of covering vast distances in a reasonable amount of time.  Those late day thundershowers can be tough on flying. Not sure why we can’t get the system updated but all in good time, right? Hmm.  But then I think: it’s not like the airline industry started flying people yesterday; they’ve been in business long enough to get better at what they do. It seems the industry has been willing to spend vast sums of money to lobby for government subsidies while lobbying against potentially costly safety measures.  Seats today are smaller, airplanes are older and flying coach in this country has become a truly second-class way of traveling, like flying on one of the discounted no-frills airlines except without the discount.  So with reports suggesting it will get better before it gets worse, it’s no wonder passengers are getting a bit short-tempered with all the explanations which, after awhile, just don’t fly.

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