What made matters worse was that I'd been booked on one of those budget airlines that charge you extra for breathing inside the cabin and provide you with seats so small that you can't wear even a light summer jacket without it flowing over the arm rests. Worse, the only "free" entertainment aboard was the lone music channel that consisted entirely of Minnesotan artists. Thank God I'd remembered my MP3 player stocked with Beethoven symphonies and a couple of feature films–not that the latter did much good over the roar of the engines. Beethoven can cope with that, but not much else can.
Regular readers will know that I can't stand air travel. At least, I can't stand regular commercial air travel. If I travel by seaplane or some local prop service, I'm happy. But put me in those flying cattle cars that lurch between major airports, and I am miserable.
It isn't just the indignity of going through security checks that make me feel like I've been arrested. That's a nightmare in itself, but at least I get my revenge at the full-body scanner when the junior KGB agent has to look at the outline of my middle-aged body. No, it's mainly the increasing coarseness of it all. I've been flying for over forty years and I recall when air travel was an adventure. More than that, when it was something to be looked forward to rather than dreaded. There was once a time when airlines promised (and delivered) speed, comfort, and service. They weren't perfect by any means, but they at least did their best. It wasn't that long ago that airliners boasted lounges, bars, and proper sleeping berths. True, tickets back then were too expensive for the common man, but even when the age of mass travel started there was enough of a trickle-down from First Class that the coach passengers enjoyed an echo of gracious travelling.
I can understand how things have changed. Once the airlines competed against railways, ocean liners, and even airships. Now they compete against themselves in an environment that cuts margins to the bone, yet doesn't force enough of the weak sisters out of the game to make way for the real innovators. Add in security and government regulations and you end up with a powerful downward pressure combined with a bureaucratic mindset. All of this could be tolerated if it weren't for how a sense of shabbiness has crept into the whole thing. Despite the efforts of some of the better airports to improve things, terminals are more and more like coach stations without quite so many puddles of fresh urine. The depressing thing is that at least with coach travel you get a decent view of the countryside. As air travel becomes more like waiting for a Greyhound, so the passengers look and act more like the sort of people who do that sort of waiting: Men who dress like children, persons carrying frightening looking parcels, and those you really don't want to make eye contact or inhale downwind of.
Add in a service philosophy that treats passengers like cattle and you get flights like the one I was on Saturday where a coffee trolley becomes a source of excitement like an actual second of plot development during an episode of Game of Thrones. No wonder I was the only one aboard who felt obligated to put on a jacket to travel instead of a shell suit and a baseball cap.
Why has this happened? Why this race to the bottom and why have people responded in kind? I think it's because air travel, at least at the major airlines end, is a bust. True, jet liners are fast and they don't require much infrastructure compared to railways and cars, but getting hundreds of tons of metal to fly through the air isn't cheap and it leaves so little profit margin that slicing an inch off the leg room sounds like a good idea. Can you imagine someone giving the deck chairs aboard the Queen Mary or the smoking lounge seats on the Hindenburg a similar treatment? So we've gone from stratoliners with sleeping berths to economy seats designed for midgets. Worse, it produces the attitude that makes the Peter Sellars advert at the top of the article look ludicrous by today's standards.
So, whats to be done? There are some simple things, such as accepting that you get what you pay for and that anyone who flies Ryan Air or Sun Country gets what they deserve, and there are others such as encouraging stronger competition in freer markets, but I suspect that technology will have the decisive role. For example, the development of more sophisticated air traffic control systems will allow true air taxi services to form and for even small jets to operate from local airports. Blended body designs and other improvements may take the pressure off airlines to cram in seats and allow them to work more on improving service to attract people away from older cylinder airlines. And the revival of the airship may bridge the gap between those who wish to travel in a hurry and those who wish to arrive in comfort.
Maybe, but in the meantime, I plan to travel by car whenever my schedule allows me.
6 comments:
One question, one statement.
Question: how does the price of traveling in Ye Olden Dayes compare with that of flying first class today, adjusted for inflation? I don't know the answer, but have now become somewhat curious. Perhaps flying expensively remains itself, and the real difference is that the old Ford Trimotor has acquired a tail full of (relatively) cheap seats in the stern.
Statement: airship sounds like fun. But not at the pace of modern life. If I had access to WiFi so I didn't have to take a week of vacation to float cross-country, and if the employer allowed telecommuting like this while traveling, I could deal with it. Or if I had a European-style multi-month (give or take) vacation. But if I must break my fast on the East Coast and bolt some lunch in California, and I've got three deadlines and five bugs of various degrees of subtlety making my life interesting, the day's disruption that flying requires is already biting into what I smilingly call my lifestyle. Harried salarymans pay. For people who want a leisurely trip with berths for sleeping and views out the windows, there's the train. And we all know how well Amtrak's doing.
Meh. Just back from the office (bug, ugly), need to be awake again soon. This isn't the old life with the starched collars and the dip pens.
Modern commercial air travel is largely the result, not of Reagan's deregulation, but of World War Two. After that, anybody with a few spare bucks could buy a GI-surplus C-47 Skytrain (Dakota to the British) and set themselves up as an airline.
Most such died rather quickly due to undercapitalization, and their assets (said C-47) were bought up by larger entities. This began a cycle of mergers and reorganizations that ended with a few carriers that operated at the razor-thin margins David mentioned.
And then, of course, the government(s) intervened. Some, like the U.S. government, did so to "ensure fairness" (an oxymoron if there ever was one). Others, like the European countries, simply took over the airlines, and proclaimed that they now had "national flag carriers"- a model followed by most Second and Third World nations as well.
All of the above not only stifled competition (thereby removing the incentive to provide customer service), but also resulted in "private" businesses run like government agencies. And we all know how efficient and "customer oriented" those are.
The only real cure is the one David proposes. Stop flying with the airlines until they either get a clue, or go out of business. My guess is the latter will happen before the former does.
After which, maybe the carriers who replace the present lot will be run by people who won't make the same mistakes.
We can hope, anyway.
cheers
eon
Ticket pricing; that's a point I forgot. Sleep deprivation will do that to you. Today, it's impossible to figure out how much it costs to fly. There are so many sliding scales, bonus points, black out periods, etc, etc, that it's impossible to make an informed decision. I would be a lot happier if they airlines simply figured out how much it cost to get from A to B, allow one alternate fare for off-peak travel, and posted that.
As to airships, I'll be selfish here and say that if you give me a decent bar, a comfy berth,and good wifi and cell phone connections, I'll happily spend two days in the air. As it is, I'm too old to do the red-eye just as I am to do any more all-nighters at the keyboard. Sure, I saved two days over my hypothetical airship, but I'm so whacked out from Saturday that I won't get anything productive done until Tuesday.
What's particularly galling is that Plan A was exactly the Amtrack option that Sergej mentioned with me taking the the wife and daughter, but Amrtak operates so few trains now that it's impossible to get a sleeper now.
Side note: Apparently, the whole time I was gone the dogs refused to eat, howled at regular intervals, and Carl the Cattle Dog slept with one of my slippers. Now that's devotion.
Why has this happened? Why this race to the bottom and why have people responded in kind? I think it's because air travel, at least at the major airlines end, is a bust. True, jet liners are fast and they don't require much infrastructure compared to railways and cars, but getting hundreds of tons of metal to fly through the air isn't cheap and it leaves so little profit margin that slicing an inch off the leg room sounds like a good idea. Can you imagine someone giving the deck chairs aboard the Queen Mary or the smoking lounge seats on the Hindenburg a similar treatment? So we've gone from stratoliners with sleeping berths to economy seats designed for midgets. Worse, it produces the attitude that makes the Peter Sellars advert at the top of the article look ludicrous by today's standards.
That is called Capitalism. It has been just exactly as Tom Osenton described in his Death of Demand - we have entered the downtrend, where the profits diminish towards profitability limit. The airline market simply has saturated, and the downtrend has gone on for decades now. The airlines are working now on diminishing profits - and they attempt to cut corners where-ever possible. That is why they treat paying customers like cattle.
Saturation of the market means there simply is no way to expand the market any more. The airline market has become a game of chairs: a zero-sum game, where the profits of one actor are away from the others. Since the competition is dire and everyone wants to stay in the business, no actor wants to take risks and they all are ready to cut corners and maximize their own marigins where-ever posible.
I once said that Capitalism is good for producing quantity but bad on producing quality. And that is exactly what has happened. The quality of the commodity - air travel service - has diminished at the same time when the airline carriers are fighting for their profits on tooth and nail.
There is over-capacity in the airline business. There are more carriers than there are customer base. Most new actors who enter the business usually go bust in five years or less. It is expectable that many of the existing airlines either consolidate or simply go out of business.
What is the solution? National[ized] flag carriers? No. They would fare exactly as badly on the business as private actors, and traditionally the national flag carriers have been refugies to either overtly technical nerds and geeks with little understanding of economics, or safe workplaces for failed politicians.
Frankly, there is no solution. Once the markets saturate, they stay that way.
That is one of the reasons why I never fly to Sweden, but rather take ferry. While it is slower, I can eat heartly, sleep the night in berth, have a good evening in the bar or disco - and in the morning I can drive my own car out of the ferry to Sweden and don't need to rely on buses, underground or taxis. The ferry lines make most of their profits with restaurants, pubs and tax-free. That keeps the ticket prices cheap.
David, an unpleasant experience for you but you provided an amusing and pithy take on the affair for your readers. In your description of the air carrier experience you conjured an image of what happens when the least common denominator is sought by those who use the service - in this case, travelers want low fares and are willing to put up with some physical discomfort in exchange for reduced pain in their wallets. Being a successful and influential member of the media, next time you'll need to splurge and take that G-5 you have waiting in your hangar. Still, commercial travel beats Soviet-style oxcarts (or their automotive equivalents) any day of the week. :)
Still, commercial travel beats Soviet-style oxcarts (or their automotive equivalents) any day of the week. :)
Sure. Where we get to the question that does it beat the Fascist-style autostrade at any day of the week?
Mind you of the literal translation of "Volkswagen". The Fascist regimes were also early proponents of both airlines and high speed rail.
As I said, the good news is that Socialism does not work. The bad news is that Fascism does.
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