Air travel is going to be very bad, for a very long time

No matter what the topic, there seems to be no market for writing articles about minor changes or slight adjustments. The world is always ending, there is always an impossible deadline, and the worst possible projection is absolutely the most likely one. This state of affairs is a consequence of the usual culprit: advertising. Society&#x2F;the media needs to develop a new business model, and fast.<p>In reality, airlines will probably have a tough year or two, airports will adopt some new health measures, and things will mostly continue as they were before.

I understand this is asked every time, but honestly in the 2 months of Covid19 and 20 years of post-9&#x2F;11, I still haven&#x27;t seen an answer that makes sense:<p>Why are we obsessing over airplane security so much, but completely ignoring ground transportation?<p>Never mind Metro&#x2F;Subway&#x2F;Underground, which we can claim not every city has (I&#x27;d still imagine total number of subway passengers daily outweighs airplane passengers or is at least comparable) - what about buses? Trains? Street cars and trams?<p>Any airplane I&#x27;ve ever flown had better filtering and circulation, more spacing and better hygiene, than any bus I&#x27;ve ever ridden in. Every airport terminal was more spacious than every indoors bus or train terminal. Across countries and continents this ratio has held true.<p>So why this <i>obsession</i> with airplanes as the vulnerable part of the equation? Is it all just... human inability to calculate risks and our focus on the &quot;flashy&quot;?<p>I&#x27;ve done 50-75 flights a year over last 10 years; none last 2 months obviously, and I don&#x27;t foresee any soon; but I&#x27;m DEFINITELY not going to take our friendly neighbourhood Toronto subway if I can help it, as much as it&#x27;s the key to fighting traffic and pollution.<p>This should be throwing our entire transportation industry into disarray and restart fundamental discussions about urban planning and urban landscaping of the future... and yet I only ever see the airline industry mentioned.

What I can&#x27;t wrap my head around: how is being packed with 100s of people inside of a plane a few times a year seen as more dangerous than being even more packed with even more people in the metro every day during commute? I feel like the risk of getting infected in public transport is undermined comparing to planes&#x2F;hotels&#x2F;restaurants.

People are treating the pandemic as over where I am. They are having friends over, booking cruises, ignoring distancing in grocery stores, etc. Plenty of social media chatter about bargain air tickets for August. Carnival is reporting a 200% surge in bookings over August 2019.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastcompany.com&#x2F;90503385&#x2F;what-pandemic-carnival-cruise-bookings-soar-600-for-august-trips" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastcompany.com&#x2F;90503385&#x2F;what-pandemic-carnival-...</a><p>You ask them about it and they say that the pandemic is an old person&#x27;s problem. &quot;if I get corona&quot; guy has lots of friends it seems.

Contrarian opinion. Air travel may actually get better for the first time in decades.<p>Ever since 9&#x2F;11, there was a steady decline in comfort of regular passengers. Now airlines actually have to court those few remaining passengers. I fully expect to see of the room to come back ( even if it is with a fee ).

I really wish as consumers we could just pay the actual cost for air travel, rather than it being hid in smoke through all sorts of subsidies.

The article mentions Zoom, but a major change is going to be in on-site sales, contracting, and representation.<p>Much like commercial office space, companies have just paid all of the fixed costs for remote work, their employees have adapted their home offices.<p>Before, you were paying a global consulting firm to fly to your office to have an occasional meeting with your employees up to 3 days a week; now you get 5 days a week, no flight or hotel expenses, and 60+% of your employees are happier and more productive.

I feel like there&#x27;s a huge amount of delayed demand. A lot of people I know are pretty desperate to travel as soon as it&#x27;s safe to do so (without quarantine after each leg).<p>I don&#x27;t think demand will take such a huge hit. It just depends on whether the airline industry can ramp up supply again quickly or if it will take a long time.<p>But I could just be in a bubble of people who still have jobs and I suppose that might all change as the true economic effects settle in

I honestly think there are 2 ways this can go. Either very badly, or very nicely.<p>If the airlines insist on running full planes, then things are going to suck, and its going to take a long time for them to recover. Nobody is going to want to be smashed up against a stranger for seconds, much less hours on end. And if people fear this, no amount of procedures are going to change there minds.<p>If the airlines decide to continue blocking off the middle seat and <i>raise prices to compensate</i>, then this could wind up making flying much more pleasant.

Seems like an obvious time to invest in long distance passenger train infrastructure. Speaking for my self personally I would rather take a longer more comfortable train ride, then a plane ride anyway. Construction of train system would help the economy, emissions go down, less cars on the road. Everyone wins. This is another area the US is behind the rest of the world on.

You mean it was good at some point?

If the post-9&#x2F;11 hysteria is any indication, it will <i>never</i> get better.

I stopped flying about 18 years ago, mostly because I was taking too much business travel but also due to the environmental impacts and general unpleasantness of it all. I&#x27;ve never regretted that decision.

Yeah shit&#x27;s fucked up and stuff.<p>When will we just start telling people &quot;deal with it&quot; ?

The simple answer is, enclosed spaces breathing strangers exhalations are going to be very risky till we hit vaccine &#x2F; herd immunity.<p>Will your business insurance cover that?

Well, perhaps flying <i>should</i> be unpleasant, given its negative externalities.

germaphobery in overdrive...