Flying in 2025
It's worse than ever before
Lately we've been publishing, based on direct experience, all sorts of articles about airlines and airports. When one travels to the far east* it's quite common to "park" (or hop, being in "transit") somewhere in the Gulf States (not the Gulf of Mexico, a.k.a. Gulf of Cheeto America). There are logistical reasons for this; I'm not good at explaining why planes aren't good at 20-hour flights or why it's difficult to sell all seats on such flights rather than "mix and match" destinations; seems like a purely business decision because takeoffs and landings take plenty of time and energy. Nowadays there's so much to worry about when flying, and moreover it is further exacerbated when there are multiple lags: luggage can be lost/misplaced, luggage can be damaged when tossed from one plane's belly to the "next belly", online bookings are a chore (limited browser compatibility and risks associated with overbooking), technical issues that spill out all passengers "overboard" (even at very short notice), and "missed" connections.
I'm fast losing the will to fly anywhere. Each year or each decade it gets noticeably worse. I don't enjoy flying and certainly don't envy people who must fly frequently (typically for business reasons). Unless they have private jets, they'll be subjected to the same "security theatre" everyone else is meant to expect (and arrive 3 hours early at an airport due to a possibility of delays or "pile-ups"... because something something "security", even if almost all plane crashes are due to purely technical reasons). Needless to say, private jets aren't exactly safe. Not too long ago a private jet crashed in a British airport; it's only marginally safer than private sector helicopters (not that military helicopters are incident-free).
As they say in the context of relationships (business or romantic), maybe the problem is you, not me. Unlike "it's not you, it's me".
When it comes to airlines and airports, the problem is the airlines and airports, not the passengers. Their business operations are all about greed or "efficiency" - to the point of overbooking flights and then asking all passengers (typically hundreds) to waste hours with Web sites and "apps" to "pre-check-in". Just so that they can sell one more (otherwise vacant) seat they're willing to get hundreds of people hundreds of hours' worth of chores. Where's that "efficiency" now? █
Last week: Enshittification of Airports, Airlines, and Airplanes
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* Holidays took their toll. Rianne's laptop was rebooted today. First time since 2023. It ran out of battery because charging isn't possible everywhere one goes (remote planes) and an Internet connection is habitually required to publish things, even if those things are prepared "offline". 2,000 days of uptime? Not any time soon. Maybe end of 2026.