Is There Any Wonder That They're Bankrupt?

I was shocked to find out this week that Muse's boss, upon purchasing airline tickets with her husband for an upcoming trip to Germany, was told that they would need to report to the airport not one hour, not two hours, not even three hours, but FOUR HOURS before their flight was scheduled to leave in order to ensure their arrival through check-in and security in time for their flight. Now is it just me, or is it no wonder that the airlines aren't doing so well?

I still find the two hour request to be absurd for overseas flights. It means you get through and sit for another hour (at least)to get on the plane and then another half an hour after your seated. But to expect someone to come to the airport four hours early...It's absurd. Even worse, the airport requested that for domestic flights, passengers were now expected to show up two hours early.

Consider the implications of this. Muse and I flew to New Orleans because the church paid for the tickets. But how much was saved by taking the flight? We were told to arrive two hours early (we ignored that suggestion.) But say we had gone along with it. We arrive at LEX two hours before we are scheduled to take off. It takes half an hour to get there. We wait two hours, get on the plane and wait another half an hour. We fly to Memphis in two hours and wait for two hours before re-boarding another plane. We wait another half an hour before taking off and spend another two hours in the air. Finally, we arrive in New Orleans. That's nine and a half hours. We could have driven it in about sixteen hours and spent a whole lot less than the $600 tickets (A cut-rate bought from Travelocity.)

Now some might consider the ease of not having to drive worth it. Others might decide that it's enough time saved that the money is worth it. And this is debatable. That's why I started with this example. Consider another.

I could drive from Kentucky to Delaware in about ten and a half hours. But that's a bit much to do on my own, so we paid to have me fly a handful of times early on in my Seminary career. Again, I was instructed to arrive at the airport at least an hour and a half (preferably two hours) ahead of my flight departure. So I take the half an hour to the airport, wait two hours, wait another half an hour, and take off. We fly for forty-five minutes to Cincinnati. Wait for a two hour layover, wait another half an hour to take off, fly for two and a half hours and arrive at BWI. Then I have to drive an hour and a half home. That's more or less eleven hours. And it costs $250ish. I couldn't have possibly spent that much money on gas on the trip, even if gas prices tripled. I could have stopped in the middle and rented a hotel room for the night, and still spent less.

So if you're still with me by this point, you might be grumbling at all the math. But think about it. It is, daily, becoming increasingly impractical to fly. Unless you have too great a distance, or too much water between you and your destination, flying is becoming so over-priced and long that it's no wonder that the airlines are all going broke. Now some will find these issues to not be deal breakers. But increasingly for me, I can't see much sense in flying to anywhere that I can arrive at by other means. I think based on the economic condition of the industry, that more people agree with me than not.