Airport horror

The BBC asks:

Has the airport experience become horrible?

The only sane answer is, "What yak farm have you been living on for the past fifteen years?"  The last time I had a pleasant airport experience was at a seaplane terminal in Seattle.  Check in was easy, the staff was friendly, the security checks were reasonable and the lounge was comfortable.  In fact, the only time I enjoy flying these days is when I'm travelling between small municipal airports on twelve-passenger puddle jumpers.

The giant cattle car hubs have descended into the realm of nightmare where reason is left at the door.  Security after 9/11 has become as onerous as it is pointless with passengers subjected to all manner of humiliations because those in charge refuse to use profiling back with random checks and Israeli-style interviews for fear of offending Muslims.  What makes this so infuriating is that it doesn't even work.  These dead-eyed gauleiters never catch any Jihadists and it's always the passengers jumping on the would-be assassin's neck that gets the job done.  When I come to power I intend to focus security where it belongs, on screening check-in luggage, and instead of taking nail files away from passengers, I'll have large hunting knives and cudgels Velcroed under every passenger seat.

Then, of course, there's the airlines who have almost forgotten about service and insist on running a doomed business model into the ground by cramming more and more people into larger and larger planes while treating them like so much meat to be processed rather than valued customers to be cosseted.  Take my word for it, once technology advances enough to provide an alternative, such as a a semi-autonomous air taxi service operating out of small local airports, the giant hubs are going to haemorrhage business like a burst aorta.