It takes a special sort of culture to turn millennia of human dreams into a soul crushing experience. I suppose one can take a certain sort of pride in that.
I am speaking, of course, of flying.
The vast amounts of money involved make the situation far bleaker than the spiritual pain. Humanity can finally fly – and we pour billions of dollars into it – and this is the best we can do?
We have million dollar skyways at every gate so that one doesn’t have to walk out onto the tarmac and climb stairs into the plane – let alone getting cold or wet while doing so – yet there are fewer seats in the boarding area than on the plane?
We have gigantic buildings worth hundreds of millions, yet the hallways are too narrow to allow passengers in a hurry to get through the crowds? Broken slidewalks and broken escalators are the norm, rather than the exception? Both of which are too narrow to allow those in a hurry to pass those lollygagging?
We have thousands of years of architectural history and the glory of flight behind us, yet the modern airport is the best we can do? For that price?
It’s a sad state of affairs when the seats on a Greyhound bus are more comfortable than those on an airplane. I’m so old that I remember when one would get food on flight, then one had to pay for it, now it’s not available.
For something to become common for the masses, it must be cheap per head – but that means fixed costs require more heads. Neither airplanes nor airports are small fixed costs. Perhaps if they were not both circles of hell in a modern-day Inferno, there would be more heads to spread that cost across.
Marked Up 