The agony of air travel

There was a day... there was a day when I actually enjoyed air travel. Maybe that was back in 1984 or so. Checkin and security and boarding were so quick, painless, and anxiety-free that air travel was a joy, at least for me. Now, all of that is changed, and it is not simply because of 9/11. Part of it is due to the financial difficulties of so many airlines, where the equipment is too old and too poorly maintained and too poorly serviced. Maybe it is also due to an increase in demand that hasn't been met with a sufficient increase in infrastructure. Whatever. All I really know is that I now look forward to air travel as being quite a painful experience. Sure, some trips turn out to be reasonably pleasant, but it's a Russian roulette thing where you can almost flip a coin whether your travel experience will be heaven or hell, and betting on heaven is a loser's game.

It used to be quite easy to find an economical flight that departed mid-morning (from say Denver) and arrived by late afternoon (say in New York or Washington), but now such a flight tends to be outrageously expensive if even available at all, unless you purchase significantly in advance.

Now, most of the available and economical flights either depart very early morning or so late that public transportation is unavailable or exceedingly inconvenient. In the old days, a 6:30 a.m. bus was sufficient to catch an 8:00 a.m. departure. No more. Now, even a 5:00 a.m. bus is pushing it, and some places don't have service that early.

That's the triple anxiety: the service may not be available, or is too expensive, or too inconvenient.

That's it: three strikes and you're out.

The net result is that I do far less air travel than in 1984. This year, I took one business trip to San Francisco from Denver, one trip to Seattle for a job interview, and a one way trip to Seattle to move to the new job back in May. I've done no air travel for almost six months now. I was expecting a trip to Washington, D.C. this month, but that seems on hold, and I may go to New York City for Christmas and New Years, but that's it for me. And I'll actually be happier with less travel.

I'm living in the Seattle area right now and it would be nice to hop down to San Francisco for the weekend. In the olds days, I could leave work at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday evening and catch a 7:30 p.m. flight for $250 and arrive in San Francisco by 9:30 p.m. with plenty of time for a nice, pleasant, relaxing dinner. And, I would do that by stopping in to buy my ticket at my full-service travel agent at noon that same day. That was quite reasonable, and quite pleasant.

Let's see... if I go into travelocity.com, and check for flights from Seattle to San Francisco this coming Friday evening returning next Sunday afternoon, I see that the closest departure is at 6:40 p.m., costs $380, and there is only 1 seat left. I would have to get to the airport by 5:00 p.m. and probably have to leave work around 3:20 p.m. That is not exactly convenient.

Given my current financial situation, such an expense is out of the question.

And that was before I even started looking at hotel prices.

I know I can get a much better airfare with Priceline "name your own price", but Priceline doesn't give me any real control over schedule. If I am leaving late Friday afternoon, I need to say I need a flight that departs between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., and Priceline doesn't let you do that.

Hotels are different, since they have no arrival or departure times, so I always use Priceline "name your own price" for hotels.

In the old days, I would stay at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero in San Francisco and pay a weekend rate of $99 to $129. Now, I see that the weekend rate for next weekend with be $275. I tried to compare that to the weekday rate, but the hotel is sold out so it wouldn't tell me. I checked for two weeks from this week and the weekend rate is $179 versus $259 during the week. Ouch. This is all way too expensive for me.

On the other hand, I'm sure I could get a semi-decent room in San Francisco for $79 with Priceline. Still, that's not as pleasant and convenient as the old days. Getting a great deal with Priceline is doable, but is actually hard work.

In the old days, I could simply call the hotel reservations the same day and still get a decent rate.

Old days: Airfare $250, hotel $99 times two, for a total of $448.

These days, Airfare $380, hotel $275 times two, for a total of $930. Yikes!! And that is simply the financial pain before that physical agony of the trip.

Maybe I simply find it a bit depressing that I can no longer take a quick weekend trip without a lot of pain.

-- Jack Krupansky