Once the plane is in the air, I usually take my carry-on bag out from under the seat in front of me, put my feet in its place, and then stow my bag behind my feet. It seems pretty secure to me, and I’ve never had a complaint from the flight crew.

Definitely. But when I’m going to Scotland for two weeks – especially in the winter – a shoulder bag just doesn’t cut it. (I go to Scotland for two week stays twice a year.)

My beef is not with the shoulder-bag crowd, my beef is with the Giant Rolly-Bag crowd, the ones with the enormous bloated suitcases which, if they fit in that little box to judge carryons I will eat the box. Before last August the airlines were criminally lax on this, and very often the whole passenger compartment, overheads and under seats, was stuffed with these things. It took forever to get onto the plane (and off) and sometimes people dropped these things on or near your head trying to wrestle them into the overhead. And I was always praying that overhead bin was stronger than it looks.

Now, thanks to some fumbling lunatics in England, all that is over. You can have ONE carryon and one “personal item” (they’re trying to say “purse”) and that’s it, and they check to see that the one carryon is within specs. That means that boarding and deboarding times have been cut in half, that you can actually find a place for your coat, that maybe you can have the space under the seat ahead of you free for your feet. Imagine!

You know, if you really want to spend the extra time and money just to have a chat with a stranger about his daughter’s soccer game, you can always call up a travel agent. But really, the world runs a lot more smoothly when we don’t insist on making a box social out of every transaction. Then we can take the time and money we save on faceless transactions like these and spend them with the people we really care about.

Regarding the high prices in the stores, I doubt very much that the people operating the stores are making money hand over fist. I believe that the airport charges high rent for retail space and then uses it to subsidize airport upkeep. If we didn’t pay for upkeep in high markups, we’d pay for it in ticket surcharges. Just do what I do: Don’t buy anything, and enjoy the free ride.

“Elsewhere” for these purposes being New York City? That won’t help.

Since the alleged London we-mix-liquids-you-die incident last August, flying has actually become marginally more pleasant, especially if you’re going to Europe, because the airlines no longer allow everyone to carry on two elephantine steamer trunks, which then hold up boarding while they try to shove everything in the overhead rack. I hope they continue the restrictions on carry-ons. Check your luggage, guys.

“Security” is problematic. Always has been. I am certain that any would-be bomber who had two brain cells to rub together could easily evade the restrictions currently in place – and this is about as strict as we can get without having the entire air travel flow jam up completely.

So why are there not more bombings? I’m guessing that it’s a combination of two factors:

1. Most terrorists, like most other criminals, really DON’T have a lot of brain cells to spare, or at all, and
2. Someone is doing a good job at espionage, catching these guys and foiling these plots before they get to the airport.

The other aspects I spoke to are the commercialization of public space by making every bit of the travel experience for profit and the bonehead behaviors of a highly visible (though perhaps minority) group of fellow passengers who behave as though the world is an extension of the living room, with attendant lax standards of decorum.

It’s a mix that causes me to want to retreat to the confines of my own living room to escape the offensiveness of it all.

When you note the widespread use commercial jets for travel dates to the 1960s, this does look like an issue that has impacted the industry a lot historically.

Shops in, IIRC, Newark Airport claim that their prices are the same as those in their shops elsewhere. For what that’s worth.

I actually think that TSA is something of an improvement over the old airport screeners. At least the TSA people seem to have some idea of what they’re doing. Though the taking off shoes and discarding liquids routine slows things down considerably.

One question about transportation issues: My impression is that most really deadly bombings worldwide are car bombings. The US has seen at least two nasty car bombings as well (the OK City bombing and the initial attempt on the WTC.) There has been a total of one (or, depending on how you count it, three) successful use of a plane in a terrorist attack. So why are planes subject to all these draconian measures while car drivers are not subject to any inconvenience at all? At the very least, shouldn’t parking in large buildings be forbidden, lest someone come in with a van (or two) full of explosives and drop another building? Maybe some inspections at bridges and tunnels to make sure that no one is bringing explosives in to destroy them? If it is constitutional to inspect backpacks in the subway, surely inspection of cars is allowable too. Plus it might discourage people from driving in large cities, always a positive side effect.

It has the feel of the stereotypical management consultant hit job. Someone swoops in, makes radical changes to how things have been done, and then leaves without seeing how it works out and impacts those involved. Participants, of course, have no authority to change any of it.

On a typical flight, I typically spend 1.5 hours going to and from the airport, about 2.5 hours making my way to and from the gate (via check in, security, interterminal transport and baggage claim) and maybe 1-3 hours actually flying. A good part of the flight is going to and from the runway. On most of the trips I take, the plane could be going two or three times the speed of sound when actually flying and it would barely make a dent in the total trip time. One of the main advantages of rail in the Northeast Corridor is that the security and check in measures are less intense.

Security and public announcements are just weird.

Does it make us any safer to have security check ins when we have more people than could fit on any plane, packed tight in the check in created bottleneck, at a point in the process where everyone is carrying unscreened bags? Can’t someone (or a group of people each with their own bomb) just carry their 70 pound duffle bag into the middle of the winding security line and blow themselves up there, killing more people than a car bomb in an Iraqi market or mosque? Done simultaneously in many busy airports on a holiday departure date, it would be more devistating than 9-11. Is that risk really smaller than the risk of a shoe bomb or a shampoo bottle bomb that inconveniences tens of millions of people every week?

Why must we keep our eyes on our bags at every moment when everyone in the terminal has a boarding pass or a job at the airport, and everyone has been screened for everything from shoe bombs to laptop bombs to liquid gel bombs to firearms to large metal wrenches to boy scout knives?

Why do they bother to announce “we are boarding in five minutes” notices in the main terminal where someone in a security line hearing it couldn’t dream of making it to the gate for another half an hour?

Can’t at least one airport in the world have a non-profit or cooperative concession shop offering real world prices, instead of subjecting a captive audience to captive audience prices? After all, most airports are themselves non-profits owned by governments whose mission is to serve the local community, not snack and book vendors.

Similarly, why do airports always underestimate parking demand and hence require for profit companies to set up their own operations nearby? It isn’t as if there is a lack of empirical evidence, easily gathered, about parking demand at airports. You’d have to hire a consultant, but it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do.