February 16, 2015
Airline travel has basically become a flying bus. Men wear flip-flops and go completely shirtless, while women wear daisy-duke cut-off shorts and bikini tops as if they’re heading to the beach directly from the plane. Passengers remove their shoes and socks and place them on the seats in front of them, or clip their toenails inflight, among other unmentionables. However, that’s not the worst part of air travel.
Airlines are starting to make air travel nearly unbearable. Comfortable leg room is becoming extinct as airlines try to stuff as many seats into an airplane as humanly possible. Now that we’re practically flying with our kneecaps at our eyeballs, airlines are beginning to make the seats more narrow — just so they can squeeze 1 more seat into an already tight airline row. Or in other words, they’ve squeezed every inch of space they can vertically, now they’re about to put the pinch on us horizontally.
United Airlines is currently configured with 9 seats across its wide-body planes, however they are about to join Air Canada and KLM in making the seats narrow enough to accommodate 10 seats across. Forget the flying bus analogy — this is about to be a can of sardines!
For years, coach class has been the standard of air travel. Now, some airlines are creating a downgraded basic economy class with no leg room, no arm room, no overhead storage space, no choice of seat and no other amenities — all for the same rate you’ve been paying in coach all along. This means the standard you’ve come to know as coach is about to come with an additional price tag.
Current Events
Beginning later this year on Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines, if you want a seat with standard leg room, or a seat that you’ve chosen yourself, or an overhead bin to store your carry-on, be forewarned that those former standard services will soon come with a premium. Of course if you want to “save” (translation= pay the rate you’ve always paid), you’ll have to accept whatever middle seat the airline chooses to give you in a remote section of the place, you’ll have to accept that you may not sit next to your travel companion and you’ll have to shove whatever carry-ons you have under the seat in front of you. Oh, and you won’t be able to make ANY changes to your cheapest fare ticket. The nickel and diming of the airline industry has just reached a new low.
If you want to avoid long lines at the TSA security checkpoint, you have to pay for it. If you want to be among the first to board your flight, you have to pay for it (or risk being relegated to Boarding Group 13). It already takes far too long to board several hundred passengers onto a plane and even longer to get them off. Then there’s the infinite wait around a crowded luggage carousel just to claim your bags (IF they made it to your destination). Pretty soon, airlines will probably find a way to charge for these inconveniences too.
Has airline travel become far too unbearable? What do you hate most about air travel today? Take our poll and tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
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