From the Road Warrior

Summer Airline Angst

By Alan Kleinfeld, 6-29-06

I travel a lot for work. Most people find it fascinating that I get paid to fly around the country and see fascinating cities like New York, Washington, DC, Boston, San Diego and so forth. In reality, traveling for business is exhausting, especially when the cities aren't NYC or Boston but rather somewhere less, well, glamourous.

When airline tickets were first available to purchase online I thought it was the greatest thing next to sliced bread, cable TV and the fax machine. It was the future and it was cool.

The benefit not only included cheaper fares, but I could decide for myself with a mouse click the time of my flights, pick my seats and even see if I’d be winging it on 737 or an MD-88, the difference being one has a 3-seat by 3-seat configuration and the other has the 3-seat by 2-seat configuration.

But since the Internet has gotten so jumbled with different travel sites, pop-ups and ever-changing fares, buying the online flight has become a huge pain in the ass. On a recent search for a trip from Albuquerque to Washington, DC, fares began at about $325 (generally it’s $250). The price was acceptable, but the flight wasn’t. The duration was over eight hours there and over 12 hours back. This for a flight that’s normally five hours there and six hours back. With layovers!

When trying to find a more reasonable duration, prices went up to exorbitant rates, even over $1000. The $325, 12-hour flight began to look more appealing. Still, it’s not worth it to stop or change plans four times. You’d think it would be cheaper for the airlines to get me to my destination and back as fast as they can. Doesn’t it sound more expensive to keep loading me and unloading me over and over again? They’d have to load food and fuel each time, pay a ticket agent to rip my boarding pass each time and even foot the cost of servicing the lavatory each time. My luggage they’d probably lose, but I don’t think they care much about that. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to put me on a plane once and get me to where I’m going?

Even Albuquerque’s shining Southwest wasn’t a bargain. Their flights were just as long and just as pricey as the “full service” boys. If I’m going to pay full price, at least I want to get an assigned aisle seat and know I don’t have to stand in the ‘A’ line two hours early.

I tried the travel agent route and found it just as frustrating. They no longer make money on airline commissions, so they charge a set fee. I figured the $30 was worth it. I had hoped that they’d take the hassle out of the search and find me the best combination of price and duration. But the agent kept me on the phone too long.

I told her what I needed in about 60 seconds and she proceeded to keep me on the phone for 25 minutes giving me options. If I had that kind of time, I would have continued to search online myself. I’d already asked her to email me, which she agreed to, but it appeared that whenever we weren’t on the phone, she wasn’t working on my travel.

Each time I thought she’d booked a ticket for me it turned out that she hadn’t and each time the cost of the ticket went up. And the layovers got longer. She may have been saving me three hours of surfing on the ‘net to find my own trip, but what good is it if she never actually books the flight?

Most people realize that travel today ain’t what it used to be. Though I’m not sure it ever was “what it used to be.” The industry attempts to operate in a mode that no one seems to understand and with so many people flying these days (as opposed to 10, 20 years ago) it makes no sense to me that the prices seem so high and that the routes seem so indirect. I thought the Supply followed the Demand, not the other way around.

If the airline industry really wanted to make air travel a pleasure, they’d get rid of that horrible middle seat. It’s a waste. No one wants to sit there and it takes up valuable real estate that would best be used for putting two bigger sized seats. But I don’t have time to discuss that now. I’m spending the next several hours trying to find a flight to Pascagoula.

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