My traditionally cheery holiday social media feeds, usually populated by adorable children viciously ripping open presents like tiny animals, were littered this week with images of frustrated passengers in never-ending airport lines and real-time updates on the cascading meltdown of Southwest Airlines. I am thankful that we didn't go to Omaha, as we do every other year to visit my husband's family, because we missed this chaos. Air travel is the only feasible option to see relatives for the holidays or to take long trips for urgent reasons, and when it's not cost-prohibitive, it's often simply miserable.
More than half of Americans live within an hour's drive of at least some of their family members, but my husband and I are not among them. I paid $2,544 for three plane tickets and two bags to Montgomery, which is close to my hometown of Wetumpka, a month before we were going to travel.
It's cheaper for me to go to London from Brooklyn than it is from where my parents live. I paid more for tickets to Alabama than I have ever paid for rent in any other city in the country. The consumer price index for airline tickets is up 25% this year. Major staffing shortages were experienced by airlines because they couldn't rehire people fast enough to keep up with demand.
The cost of squeezing efficiency out of their businesses has made the comfort level of airline economy class less comfortable. The pitch length, the distance between your seat and the same point on the seat in front of you, has decreased from a maximum of 35 inches in the 1980's to sometimes as little as 28 inches now. The only person in my family who doesn't feel cramped in economy is our 40-pound 7-year-old who is roughly the size of a carry-on bag. We did not try this for him. He said it was going to be a lot of fun.
Some airlines are worse than others and are dictated by airline executives who know that families like mine have little choice but to pay through the nose. The staff members who are expected to be wait staff, safety monitors, therapists and often law enforcement are the ones who suffer the most.
During the Pandemic, when airline personnel had to enforce masking mandates and the worst people you know decided to try air travel, there were more incidents of assault and harassment of airline attendants. When people call the airline, they get 20 minutes of automated prompts and recordings, but they can't get a human on the phone for hours. I feel strongly that the ratio should run the other way because I have cried more on the phone with airline customer service reps than I have during multiple viewings of "Terms of Endearment."
airline executives are aware of this A lot of people give up on the systems because they are difficult to navigate. What are the alternatives to the experience? If you have a car and are used to driving reasonable distances, why can't you just drive?
Many of us don't have a car, don't get enough time off for the drive, or have other constraints that prevent us from driving long distances for a few days' visit. It is not always cheaper to drive. We would have to drive for over 16 hours. Assuming we return the car immediately at the destination and get a new rental for the drive back instead of keeping it the whole time, the cost of gas and car rental would be just under 900 dollars.
The cost to drive is more than we would pay for plane tickets. The 7-year-old is prone to carsickness, and it's hard to quantify the specific misery of being in a car with a periodically nauseated child for 16 hours, especially when you're mostly on the interstate You pay in exhaustion and time because you don't pay. I paid through the nose for plane tickets because it would take eight hours to reach our destination instead of 48, the 7-year-old wouldn't vomit on anything, and I could have a bloody mary on the plane.
More difficult itineraries, more kids, more constraints, less money to pay through the nose are just some of the things people have. It is not possible for people with disabilities, lack of access to a car or other issues to drive. It isn't always less expensive when we go to Alabama. During my sophomore year of college, I got on a plane for the first time because it was going to cost me more to drive than to fly.
Deregulation's benefits have been undermined by its drawbacks. The deregulation of the industry in 1978 made it possible for middle-class consumers to fly. Customers became accustomed to expecting less from air travel and airlines put in place new policies that eliminated amenities as a result of the lower ticket prices. What happens if air travel becomes cost-prohibitive again?
We are going back to New York on Friday and that means a flight with a connection and a long layover at a weird time, which saved me $400 on a ticket. As long as we can and as long as the 7-year-old has grandparents he needs to see, we will continue to do this every year. It isn't sustainable for a lot of non business customers. Air travel may become the exclusive domain of first class passengers and business customers. If you don't want to drive, the cheaper and less miserable option is FaceTime.
She is a journalist and digital media strategist. She was the founding editor of Gawker.
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