Hating on Air Travel

I am a hater.

Of air travel.

I did not used to be.

Now I try to avoid it unless it cannot be avoided (trips over 1500 miles; overseas).

The MAIN REASON: airport security.

One supposes there is an argument for all the security on airplanes these days but I doubt it could not be done as efficiently and at no inconvenience to the traveler. Our current mindset (post-Osama) is that rights can be abrogated without a second thought.

The dressing down at the gates had become distasteful enough (and time-consuming)--an exercise in authoritarian-induced paranoia and humiliation--but now we hear it's to get worse, with more invasive pat-downs and full-body scans at the gate.

I actually don't give a hoot about full-body scans. It does not inconvenience me. Let them do it for everyone at the airport, all the time. Fine. And if you find a weapon, go for it. Or, put an armed air-marshal on every flight (which cannot be more expensive than the current horror).

But the current innocent's perp-walk through the officious security line reeks of the police state we have become, and I would love to know how many bombers have been caught this way. Can I have some hands for "none"? Maybe they are just being deterred. Or maybe we just had to stop being utterly effing lame about letting people on with weapons.

My personal opinion is that the TSA itself should be abolished and replaced with a police force trained to spot trouble. The notion that everyone must wait in line to be scanned and their liquids examined, seems lazy and wildly inconsiderate of the American "leave me alone" spirit. To me it seems a disgraceful waste and a huge entitlement program for security wannabes now dressed in gray and having far too much authority over the typical citizen traveler.

At worst, keep the TSA around for international flights and/or non-US Citizens. But the sight of US Citizens traveling from, say, LaGuardia to Tampa being patted down as if they are likely to be minions of Qaeda strikes me as a national disgrace.

In another post, I may complain about the tininess of airline seats but this is a consumer complaint and market driven, so there really is little in fact to complain about in writing but instead many plane tickets not to buy.

But I am a hater of the flying experience because my rights and privacy are brutally violated each time I encounter the security checkpoint. I feel it is a near certainty we are slowly being made immune to a near total lack of rights which may at some point become the norm. And like the frog that slowly boils in water, we will not notice until we are cooked enough to be nearly dead and able only to jerk spasmodically in anticipation of the total death of freedom.

Iceland Sends Another Message

In 2008, Iceland let Europe know it had helped fleece cash from, and was now defaulting on investments made by such doughty institutions as the Leeds Union of Teaching Professionals and individuals like, say, a hypothetical Frau Heirlein who probably thought she was getting in on a good thing in Icelandic derivatives almost as if it were a solid as Bernie Madoff's twelve percent per annum. Iceland went under and all the defrauded/deluded legion demanded recompense--not sure if they got it.

In 2010 Iceland sends Europe a message about self-reliance and the value of exhaustive examination of possibilities before investment of (in this case) time spent at an airport. I am referring to the Great Icelandic Plume that has plunged Europe into a seeming Dark Age at least for travelers now stranded for many days at airports in a populous arc reaching from Shannon to Bratislava.

Forgive me for going all "American" on these folks (and there are no doubt plenty of Americans among them), but how about a little ingenuity? In a week I am pretty sure most of them could have figured out a land route to an airport not affected by the plume and somehow gotten home; or, if both ends of their route were under restriction, figured out a combination of train, boat and omnibus that would have accomplished the same.

I cite a couple of personal examples (not expecting laurels):

1) Several years ago my family and I were on our way back from Morocco to Spain and Madrid for a flight back to the States. The flight from Seville to Madrid was canceled and, so it would seem, our plans to take our scheduled flight home from the capital. Instead of sitting on a suitcase and looking like puppies had crapped in my breakfast, I decided we would somehow get to Madrid on time. Our transportation took the form of the fast train AVE, Spain's underappreciated answer to France's mighty TGV. A couple of phone calls and a taxi ride later, we boarded at Seville, were whisked through the Spanish countryside at great speed, and deposited within distance of another taxi ride to the big airport in Madrid. We got there earlier than the connecting flight would have arrived.

2) Several years before that I was setting foot on a ferry from Bari, Italy to Greece when the workers called a wildcat "Sciopero" (strike) and thus stranded a hundred or so hapless travelers late at night on a dock in southern Italy. One silly American student got upon a wooden crate and harangued the crowd about "our rights as Americans" and soon was bundled off in a car full of Italian policemen. I decided to sit in a cafe until early morning and then walk to the car rental shop. There, I rented a car, drove away from Bari, forgot my plans for Greece, and ended up in a wonderful ancient town called Taranto the driving in which terrified me until I gladly handed over the keys to the local Avis man down an impossibly small byway which barely was able to accommodate the tiny car I had rented.

There are other examples (for instance, if the Lexington Avenue line is crowded, just take the Seventh Avenue and walk). I don't want to pile on.

My point is: get a grip travelers! The plane is not coming! Unless you have no access to credit (the only excuse I know of), get in gear and get home somehow. A volcano typically makes an unsatisfactory travel companion, and, this being generally known and understood, travelers can claim little excuse for the current impasse.