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October 28, 2025<\/h4>\n
There\u2019s that expression, \u201cpissing into the wind.\u201d <\/p>\n
Since I began writing about commercial aviation, over twenty years ago, my foundational motive has been an evangelical one: encouraging people to rediscover the greatness of air travel. I\u2019m well acquainted with the hassles and indignities of flying, and these too I\u2019ve discussed at length. But what underlies my work is a seldom heard plea to reevaluate, and maybe even savor, the idea of getting on a plane. A newspaper once described me as \u201can air-travel romantic.\u201d I can\u2019t deny it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a writer-pilot,\u201d I said to an interviewer in 2004, \u201cI hope to restore an appreciation for the airplane as part of the greater experience of travel.\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s too tall an order, but can\u2019t we at least acknowledge the impressiveness<\/em> of it? We live in an age when people can travel halfway around the world in a matter of hours, in almost absolute safety, at a cost of pennies per mile. Spend a little more to sit up front, and you relax in stupendous comfort. How is this not remarkable?<\/p>\n Well, remarkable as it might be, I worry it\u2019s not enough. I\u2019m afraid the bad simply outweighs the good, never giving people the chance<\/em> to consider another perspective. They just don\u2019t have the patience. My mission is a failed one, I suspect.<\/p>\n And I shouldn\u2019t be surprised. We\u2019ve worked pretty damn hard to make flying as tedious and infuriating as possible. <\/p>\n Our propensity to sabotage what could be, and should be, an enjoyable experience, seems to worsen every year. And the saddest part is, it doesn\u2019t need to be this way. The lines don\u2019t have to be<\/em> so long. The delays don\u2019t have to be<\/em> so frequent. The security rules don\u2019t have to be<\/em> so stupid, or the noise levels so aggravating. But we make them so. Flying doesn\u2019t have to<\/em> suck, yet we insist on it.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the most dreadful part? That\u2019s subjective, I suppose, but I can offer you an opinion on what, to me, are the three worst things to happen to commercial air travel since the dawn of the Jet Age:<\/p>\n REGIONAL JETS<\/strong><\/p>\n Number three on my list is the advent of the regional jet. Starting in the 1990s, advances in engine efficiency meant that smaller jets with a few as 50 seats could now be operated profitably. This changed the way airlines did business, farming out huge swaths of domestic capacity to contract carriers (the various \u201cExpress\u201d and \u201cConnection\u201d outfits) flying what came to be called \u201cRJs.\u201d These planes have always been reliable, safe, and technologically sophisticated, but they\u2019re a sub-par product compared to mainline jets, with tight cabins, limited luggage space and minimal onboard service.<\/p>\n In the old days, turboprop \u201ccommuter\u201d planes, as we called them, fed passengers into the big hubs from outlying satellite cities. Suddenly, with the longer range and higher speeds of RJs at their disposal, carriers began deploying them even on mainline routes. Why use a Boeing or an Airbus when you could throw a couple of RJs on a route, flown by a contractor that paid its workers next to nothing? <\/p>\n Their proliferation dragged down wages for tens of thousands of employees. RJ pilots often earned less than $20,000 annually, and working conditions at many regional carriers were dire. Things have improved significantly<\/a> over the last few years, but an entire generation of workers suffered.<\/p>\n And while those commuter turboprops could fly at low altitudes and use shorter runways, more or less staying out of the way, RJs share the sky with the big jets. Thus they\u2019ve been a huge contributor to delays and congestion \u2014 maybe the biggest. At the height of RJ mania in the early 2000s, these mini-jets came to account for close to 50 percent of all commercial flights in the United States. That\u2019s half of the flights carrying maybe twenty percent of the passengers \u2014 a terribly inefficient use of airspace and runways. Thankfully these numbers are more reasonable today, but hundreds of RJs are still out there.<\/p>\n TERMINAL RACKET<\/strong><\/p>\n Next we have airport noise levels. This is the intangible one, but a big one nonetheless. It\u2019s chiefly, but not exclusively, a U.S. phenomenon, and it\u2019s gotten worse in recent years.<\/p>\n Beyond cellphone chatter and the occasional screeching kid, the typical airport terminal should be a relatively quiet place \u2014 no noisier than, say, a shopping mall. But we\u2019ve managed to make it hellishly loud thanks to an infatuation with public address announcements, very few of which serve a useful purpose. It didn\u2019t used to be this way.<\/p>\n The din starts in the concourse, where travelers are bombarded with music, promotional announcements, and pointless security advisories. Then, at the gate, at least a dozen mostly redundant PAs accompany the boarding process. There\u2019s little relief on the plane, with cabin crew yapping orders as passengers stow their bags and settle in. Then comes the interminable safety demo, and yet another flurry of announcements. Your first thirty or so minutes onboard is spent being lectured to and barked at. <\/p>\n If even half of this clamor were helpful or informative, it could be excused. But it\u2019s not. It\u2019s nothing but noise, making an already stressful experience that much worse. <\/p>\n Corrosive as it is to travelers\u2019 nerves, the effects can be subtle. You might not realize how loud the average U.S. airport is until you experience one of the more peaceful European or Asian ones. Something feels different\u2026 and then it dawns on you: it\u2019s quiet. Some European terminals ban public address announcements completely, and most non-U.S. carriers, too, take it a lot easier with PAs on the plane.<\/p>\n Congrats to the few U.S. airports who\u2019ve restricted the use of PAs. San Francisco, for one. Hopefully more will join. <\/p>\n SECURITY THEATER<\/strong><\/p>\n But probably the single worst thing to happen to flying is post-9\/11 airport security, and all of its foibles and foolishness. In the United States our punching bag is the TSA, but really this is global.<\/p>\n I\u2019m in full agreement that some type of passenger screening is necessary. The monster we created, however, is not the answer. A system that treats every last passenger as a potential terrorist, and everything they carry as a potential weapon, is a ludicrous one, but that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got; an approach we\u2019ve barely budged from in all the years since the attacks of 2001. The exasperating irony being that none of the checkpoint protocols in place today would have prevented the 9\/11 hijackers from doing what they did. <\/a> <\/p>\n I\u2019ve written volumes on all the things wrong and wasteful about airport security. Most of it is obvious, and we\u2019ve gotten so used to it that it hardly warrants repeating. But every now and then, the audacity of it hits you. The other day, watching a TSA guard confiscate someone\u2019s toothpaste, I got to thinking: Have you ever considered the thousands of tons of supplies that are trucked into airports every single day?<\/em> Food, beverages, alcohol, and endless amounts of retail inventory: all the crap for sale on the concourse. It\u2019s verboten for a passenger to carry through a tube of toothpaste, yet mountains of goods aren\u2019t given more than a cursory inspection. \u00a0<\/p>\n Which is to be expected, because it\u2019d be impossible to screen even half a percent of it with the same level of scrutiny we devote to passengers. Dare I suggest that a team of terrorists, with someone on the inside, working at a duty free shop or in a restaurant, could easily<\/em> smuggle in something deadly, then pass it along to someone getting on a plane? <\/p>\n This is only one example of the holes in our security logic. The scenarios are endless. Meanwhile, TSA is micro-inspecting your toiletries. The whole thing is completely insane. <\/p>\n As I\u2019ve always maintained, the true nuts and bolts of keeping terrorists away from planes takes place backstage, as it were, far from the airport. It\u2019s the job of law enforcement and intelligence and international collaboration. It\u2019s not<\/em> the job of guards on the concourse. What the perfect checkpoint might look like is hard to say, but surely it\u2019s not what we have. \u00a0<\/p>\n Related Stories: Photos by Daneil Shapiro, Aaskash Dhage, and Scott Fillmer, courtesy of Unsplash.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 28, 2025 There\u2019s that expression, \u201cpissing into the wind.\u201d Since I began writing about commercial aviation, over twenty years ago, my foundational motive has been an evangelical one: encouraging people to rediscover the greatness of air travel. I\u2019m well acquainted with the hassles and indignities of flying, and these too I\u2019ve discussed at length. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12028],"tags":[1043,24657],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-341223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-airline","tag-flying","tag-suck"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/askthepilot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/American-Eagle-Embraer-RJ.png\")
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Imagine a journey free of these three scourges. How different it all would feel.<\/p>\n
THE REGIONAL RECKONING<\/a>
TERMINAL RACKET<\/a>
WHAT IS AIRPORT SECURITY?<\/a><\/p>\n