air travel

On an Air France flight from Paris to Latin America, the plane is full, mostly with working class Latinos, going home for Christmas to spend a few festive days with their families and friends. They have worked hard to save their money for the trip. The plane is old and decrepit. Has no properly working entertainment system and that on a trajectory of over 12 hours without interruption. Who cares. Management knows that the humble passengers won’t complain. Anyway, they are under-people. Let’s reserve the better and newer planes for classier people. They pay better, are better clients.

There's a very noticeable difference between flying first class and flying economy, and it seems unfair. But what people don't realize is that the people flying first class are the reason why economy tickets are so much cheaper, and that the mere existence of economy tickets is proof of how much progress we've made in economics and class equality: once upon a time in 1979, an average domestic round-trip flight cost $617, adjusting for inflation. That cost is down to $366 today – a 40% drop. How did that happen?This week on Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R.

New era for infrastructure? Please. It's nothing like that. The public relations element of this administration’s actions is wildly outstripping the reality. That is both good and bad. The unwelcome parts of the Trump agenda (protectionism, drug warriorism, travel restrictions) have so far proven to be as overblown as the welcome parts (health care reform, tax cuts, and privatization).

No one loves the TSA. At all. It’s totally inefficient, very badly managed, and would be much better if it was privatized. It is the worst part of traveling, even more so than flying with a crying baby and a snoring man (which was my last flight). But this is the way it is right now, and it doesn’t look like it’ll change soon. So, without giving up the fight to make big strides to improve the TSA, perhaps we should also look at the little ways some airports are taking entrepreneurship as far as they can on their own.

Every living human being dreams of a flying car. Why? Is it the Jetsons? Is it the exhaustion from the traffic jams during which we look up and see the empty space and somehow know for sure that we should be there rather than glued to the black pavement? Is it just a romantic attachment to the idea that flying represents progress?
 

The video shows a pair of English comedians mocking efforts to privatize the U.K.’s air traffic control system. Fortunately, the privatization happened in the U.K., followed by similar privatizations in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Switzerland. In all of these countries, safety and innovation have stayed the same or improved.

"In fact, not only has flying commercially become more economically accessible to individuals of all socioeconomic backgrounds, it’s also now much safer than it used to be in the mid-century."

A traveler is patted down by a TSA agent as they go through security at the Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City. (AP/Jim Urquhart)
(ANALYSIS) — Every time the government makes a mistake (a frequent occurrence) the people pay the price for its bureaucratic incompetence—both through tax dollars and forced compliance.

A passport to travel within the United States? Yes.
The post If You Live in One of These States You’ll Soon Need a Passport for Domestic Flights appeared first on The Anti-Media.