The latest aviation news is not good. Today, if I choose to fly USAir, I will pay $15 to check my first bag of luggage and I will have to pay $2 for my usual order of water……..the 4 ounce plastic cup with 3 cubes of ice that passes for a drink of water on planes these days.
It’s not enough to have to endure the traffic nazis at the Charleston “International” Airport, those lovely people poised at the arrival and departure parking areas to threaten, annoy, and further irritate us as we drop off or pick up our loved ones. The worse face of policing possible, in my opionion.
Then, it’s into the maw of the beast, where having navigated the confusion of the check-in, we can endure having our luggage (if we choose to take any) examined by the TSA.
Having been goose stepped into the terminal and had our fineries examined by anonymous functionaries, we then will have the “pleasure” of sitting in a terminal that is dirty, understaffed, and generally depressing.
If our plane is late, or if there is a problem, we will have to call friends that have access to the internet, because we don’t, in our airport, have free wi-fi, and good luck finding an airline employee in the departure areas.
But, if we can endure these travails, and the airline can get their plane to the gate, we face the prospect of loading onto an airplane that will be dirty, every seat taken, and the usual scrum to jam luggage into the overhead bins.
We may or may not take off on time, but we will not know until we are crammed aboard and the door closed. Only then will the airline deign to advise us of the status of the aircraft and the flight schedule.
Because the airlines cannot make money the old fashioned way, they have now added the additional luggage charge for ANY checked luggage and the ridiculous fee for ANY beverage bought onboard.
So, since the airline folks haven’t figured it out, let me predict that this means that the overhead luggage bins will, if possible, be even more jammed as travellers try to avoid that fee. We can also expect to see everyone board with their own bag lunch, now accompanied by each traveler’s version of the “Big Gulp”, so they can sip during the inevitable ground delay before we “slip the surly bonds” and head to wherever.
The mess will just get messier.
Yessir, air travel just got a little bit worse.
1 response so far ↓
Becky // June 27, 2008 at 11:10 pm |
this is such a sad, but very very true depiction of the torture called ‘air travel’