I’ve waited a while before writing this post because I didn’t want to make any unjust comments until I had thoroughly vetted my experiences with airlines recently and I can honestly say that they’ve all gone to the dogs!   Not too many years ago, air travel was a nice luxury but it’s gone down hill and there seems to be no reprieve in sight.

Over the past twelve weeks I’ve been traveling consistently all over the place and here are a few distilled observations:

Big jets – Gone.  Almost every flight I get on now is in a small regional type jet.  I’m assuming big jets are only for overseas flights now.

Food – Gone.  This has been gone every since 9/11 but you can’t even buy a meal now, just simple over priced Doritos bags.

Service – Gone.  Service is non existent as you have to mostly rely on automated kiosks to do most of the heavy lifting.  God forbid your flight gets canceled because you’ll be left in limbo.   The only saving grace I’ve had is reliance on corporate travel service for emergencies.

Blankets – Gone.   I didn’t notice it until the lady a row over asked for a blanket and was told by the attendant that they were discontinued for “sanitary” reasons.

Sanitation – Gone.  Speaking of unsanitary blankets, sanitation seems to be gone with bathroom periodically not functioning, soap and paper towels frequently missing from airplanes!

Frequent Flyer Perks – Nearly Gone!  With airlines merging what instantly happens when one buys another out is all existing “privileged” members immediately compete with the other airlines members.   So if Airline A had 100 Platinum Members which got upgraded to first class and Airline B had 100 Platinum members then A + B = 200.   So instead of being 1 in 100, you are now 1 in 200.  Brilliant?

Fees – Plenty available.   Fees for snacks, fees for bags, fees for seat selection, fees for changing your mind.

Frequent flier miles – Plenty!   If there’s one thing that keeps being printed/created faster out of thin air than US Dollars it is frequent flier miles.   These miles are worthless as it’s nearly impossible to ever book a ticket on a flight and if you do, there’s a great chance you’ll be bumped off anyway!

There are a few workarounds to the misery but that’s another post for another day.