Air Travel Sucks

I don’t know of anyone who’d disagree with that statement that’s been on a commercial jet in the past year or so.  I’m back from Los Angeles, exhausted, and wondering if there’s any way I can NOT fly to Dayton in a couple of weeks.

But there’s not.

Continental Airlines, for it’s part, operated efficiently.  The planes were on time, the crews were not surly, my luggage didn’t get lost coming home.  A couple of years ago, I might have been raving about it.

But I don’t think there was more than one empty seat on any plane I was on out of four.  I mean just packed to the rafters … and everybody wants to carry on everything because nobody trusts airlines to get them and their luggage to the same destination at the same time.  The seats seem smaller, the people sitting in them are bigger, security is a royal pain in the rear … it’s just not a pleasant experience any more.  You’re admonished to get to the airport two hours before your flight, and mostly you wind up sitting in uncomfortable seats in the terminal or eating overpriced fatty food before you get into a too small seat on the airplane, the person in front of you reclines into your lap, you’re offered a cup of Diet Coke, and you’re hurtled through the air like sardines in a multi-million dollar aluminum tin.  It’s just not fun.

At least Continental offered something resembling real food on three of the four legs I’ve flown since Saturday.

Still, we all long for the good old days when you might have an empty middle seat, or *gasp* a row to your self.  When the overhead bins weren’t so packed that there was no room for your stuff near your seat because so many people have the little roll-on bags they insist on dragging through the airport and onto the planes … when people weren’t so exhausted and surly just from the security experience that by the time they get on the plane they’re already ready to get off …

Flying used to be fun.

Now … not so much.

–scene–