Airline Travel Today

By: George Wallace

This is a new subject of discussion at our home. Perhaps it is at yours, as well? When I’ve discussed it with friends and acquaintances, I get varying ideas. Mostly the complaints are not about having to remove one’s shoes, put carry-on luggage through an x-ray machine, or to walk through a detector, or being wanded, or even patted down.

After the usual fellow-traveler stories, the complaints I’ve commonly heard were, “What good does it do for me to drop my liquids outside the security gate, if I, or a-for-real terrorist, can buy those same products inside the security gate and carry them onto the plane from there? It doesn‘t make sense.”

And, “If it was important to ban an item one day, why don’t the rules stay consistent for the next day? Someone is not thinking this thing out very clearly.”

And, “I’d feel a lot better if I knew that airline and airport personnel were also equally subject to a security check when they came to work. People are too easy to bribe, or coerce.”

And, “Just tell me when they check air cargo as thoroughly as they do passengers. Then I’ll stop worrying so much.”

We have all learned since the deregulation of the airline industry to be treated like cattle shoved through airline transportation system in herds. Many of us have learned to our cost and chagrin that checked baggage means lost baggage. There is no way I’m going to put my cameras, iPod®, Blackberry®, or laptop in my regular baggage. That is the same as giving them away to the crooked baggage handlers that seem to be endemic at every airport.

Before I do that I will send them ahead to my destination by FedEx®, or similar secure transportation service.

Here, perhaps is a new business opportunity: tech device rentals at big city airports. All the business traveler need do is carry a small package of his / her flash memory cards or disks containing programs and memory files and rent the equipment he needs at his destination in much the same way he now rents a car. If you can speed rent a car, you should be able to speed rent a Blackberry®.

This further disruption of airline travel will also encourage on-line phone and computer video group business meetings. This will affect hotel and restaurant businesses. The next massive wave of lost, damaged, or ripped-off luggage will even further erode people’s perception as airline travel as an acceptable method of doing business, or visiting Grandma for Christmas. It is past time to redevelop our nations rail passenger system. The rails are more energy efficient.

Airline travel is a privilege. Privacy is not the issue.

Inconvenience is not that much of an issue, to me. My idea of travel by plane is to do it as infrequently as possible, and then to carry as little as possible. I can buy a toothbrush and toothpaste at my destination. I can even see myself putting one day’s change of underwear in my coat pocket because of the convenience of doing it that way.

I have never understood the traveler that had to bring along 600 pounds of junk to get through a business trip, or a vacation. Frankly, I think that a single small clear plastic bag is an entirely appropriate piece of luggage to carry onto the airplane.

I do hope that the airlines are smart enough to quickly adapt (doubtful) and take along extra food and fluids for consumption by the passengers. A few other items are also called to mind: hygiene supplies on board and in dispenser machines in the lavatories.

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(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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