The discontents of travel
 

I recently returned from San Antonio, TX where I attended the SIGUCCS conference. The conference itself was good, but jeez. The travel.

Without boring you with the whole story, my flight left San Antonio for Chicago an hour late. Sometime while I was in the air the airline decided that rather flying Chicago -> Philadelphia I would fly Chicago -> Charlotte -> Philadelphia (getting in 2.5 hours later than my original schedule). I learned this because they called my house and left a message on my machine. Mrs. Dallas discovered this message when she came home from work and left me a voice mail on my cell phone, which fortunately I received as soon as I landed in Chicago. I proceeded to the counter and asked why I couldn't take the direct flight to Philadelphia since it was running late too. And so I did. (I did not even ask when I was supposed to have found out about the intinerary change.)

This sucked. Between security delays and weather delays and just general airline ball-ups, I spent the whole day travelling to accomodate less than 5 hours in the air. Everybody I know who has to fly anywhere agrees that the logistical hurdles are becoming greater and greater and more and more frustrating. So, what I've started thinking about is....

At what point does air travel start to suck so much that people don't do it? When do I start saying, "you know, much as I get out of this conference, it's not worth my while to go if I have to take a plane to get there?" When do enough people start staying home or taking other transportation that the airlines' business suffers? And should we as a society give a damn if the airlines go under? If so, what do we do about it?

Personally I think the industry should be reregulated. It's too cheap to fly now and by that I mean the profit margins are too slim and I get concerned about airlines on the edge having to cut corners they shouldn't cut such as minor maintenance, including cleaning planes, fixing little crap that breaks at my seat and on up the checklist chain.

I'd dearly love to see some high speed trains in this country; there are some typical commuter corridors that I have to fly that I bet would be equally as fast door to door with a TGV or Shinkansen type train. Example: LA to San Jose or (ideally) LA to San Diego.

As to gaining rights of way and up front costs; I have no idea, but in a way I don't care how much it costs up front; I want those trains.

Re: The discontents of travel
 

I'm already there. I hate hate hate air travel. It used to be an expensive but worthwhile luxury. Now it's just a giant pain in the ass.

I want better train travel too.

There's 5,000 planes to complete 30,000 flights everyday. At the end of each day the right size plane has to be in the right spot to start the next days round. Don't forget time out for maintenance and cleaning.
One thunderstorm shuts down one airport for one hour and everything is screwed up. Reregulating won't help that nightmare although it would provide better cash flow and considering the airlines are bleeding red ink like never before it might keep the whole mess from collapsing.

Actually, I don't mind plane travel too much. I can get a direct flight to most of the places I need to go from Philly (or Newark).

Since my folks live in Arizona, really I don't have any other option if I want to see them... I suppose we could drive out to see Badger's dad in Ohio (and we have, on occasion) but it's still less hassle on the whole to fly.

I also used to travel 22+ hours to India alone when I was a teenager. Everything else seems pretty simple compared with that.

- Pie

Just as a side note - I work closely with Northwest Airlines. Now due to new security procedures and the failing economy - they are going to have to close their Detroit reservations center and lay off about 550 people. This can - and other layoffs like this - affect my job and my employment. Please dear God - let the economy get better and get these poor people back to work. So then - when they call me to drive me insane - I know they are not taking stuff out on me just cause they got laid off.

Here in the Northeast, we have Acela service. I've heard good stuff about it, and haven't heard about issues with the trains recently.

Lemme guess Steve-o, you flew US Airways, right?

I don't mind flying overall. I've only been on a flight once since 9/11, and the security situation wasn't a big deal--although it was on an early Saturday morning. The only real problem I have with flying is that I can never seem to find a decent fare out of Philadelphia. BWI or JFK seem to be the cheapest...cheap enough to make it worth taking the train or shuttle to either of them.

It was part US Airways, part United--part of that "code sharing" agreement thing. Nobody flies direct from Philadelphia to San Antonio, and this was the best option I could find for my time requirements.

Maybe I travel to the wrong times and places (I basically just got to SIGUCCS twice a year--and it's in Baltimore next fall so I'll be on the train!!), but I've never found enough savings on a fare to justify going to another airport.

Driving to/in Baltimore, just for the length of a conference, is not that much of a hassle (I do it every other year).

Yeah, 'cept I hate to drive. Anywhere.

Go ahead, call me un-American. :blunt:

unamerican!!
unamerican!!
unamerican!!



i used to love road trips.

then i got married to the world's worst roadtripper.
and i had the world's most-likely-to-get-carsick-and-puke-down-your-bra, leaving-you-to-stand-in-your-underwear-on-the-side-of-the-pennsylvania-turnpike-at-high-noon-while-her-father-earnestly-tries-to-rescue-the-food, ignoring-his-partially-unclothed-wife-on-the-roadside kid.

now i only love roadtrips when i travel alone.