QotD: Air Travel

Long before 9/11, restrictions on smoking and seatbelts had remorselessly expanded into a culture of trivial but total coerciveness that Americans would rightly reject in any other environment. Airlines assume passengers will put up with anything because they've got no choice. But, while it's true this is a big country, an awful lot of travel is descretionary. Even business travel. Psychologically, we're stuck in the mid-19th century when the original travelling men spent eleven months of the year on the road because there was no alternative. The railroads have gone, the telephone's arrived, and so's video conferencing, and electronic networking, but guys are still on the road, flying off to lunch in Houston and a presentation in Denver and all kinds of other engagements they don't really need to be physically present at. The FAA and the airlines have blithely assumed that they can triple the amount of time you have to allow for a flight to New York for a business lunch without companies calling into question the necessity of that lunch.

Mark Steyn, "Flight from Reality", The Spectator, 2001-11-17