AIR TRAVEL: Fear of flying

Jun 14th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Air travel is often nasty, brutish, long and unprofitable. But it need not be like that, says Paul Markillie

AFTER flying in circles for nearly an hour, the British Airways pilot announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad to say we can now stop contributing to the future generation of orange groves on the South Downs and start our approach to London Heathrow.”

It was a journey typical of what is good and bad about modern air travel. As many trips now do, it began on the internet. The web has made it possible for passengers to be their own travel agents by comparing fares and schedules and booking flights—and at prices much lower than a decade ago. The seat was also chosen online, the check-in completed and even the boarding pass printed out at home before leaving for the airport, avoiding the usual queue at the airline counter.

Not that it mattered, because there was another queue to be joined in a tent outside the terminal where it took an hour to reach the security checkpoint. More...