I cant image flying that much. I am old enough to remember pre-911 flying and how much better it was before the TSA and their "Stand here with no shoes while we treat you like a criminal" procedures.
Today if my destination is with in a 10hr drive from me, I am driving. Does not even really cost me that much time as with connections, and security it takes about as long to fly anyway that is assuming it is not delayed or cancelled. Of the 10 flights I have taken in the last 3 years or so, 60% of them had some kind of delay or cancellation during one of the legs.
Plus side I have gotten very good at packing density so I can take a weeks worth of provisions in my carry on backpack easily. No checked bags for me....
I’m in the same boat, except instead of driving, I decided to get my private pilots license. being able to hop in a plane whenever you want and not worry about traffic or tsa. I always thought it was super expensive and never knew what good it was to fly into a small airport with no car, however, now that I almost have it, I realize it’s a whole community. It’s not an easy process to get and somewhat high maintenance, but can be quite rewarding.
However, it’s not cheaper than commercial. Expect about 10k for the license. Renting a small plane is about $175/hour. Owning a plane only makes sense if you plan to fly more than 100 hrs a year.
You need to fly at least once a quarter and have faa checkride every 2 years.
The small planes are very weather dependent.
However, the first time you fly solo you really feel amazing!
I'm curious, don't you have the same problem with rental planes as with rental cars that while the cost of the pure travel time might not be so bad, what really gets you is that after you get somewhere, it just sits there, still costing money until you get back days later?
I know that engine on time is particularly expensive for airplanes whereas for rental cars it's no factor, but I would also expect the pure rental time to be expensive for airplanes if you use it to go on trips as opposed to standalone flights ending back at the home airfield?
Many rental planes are rented for engine on time only. You can’t push it too far (take the plane for a year for two hours of flight time) but you can do weeks. I’ve done it.
Despite a lot of ratings myself, I have still have had to cancel a fair number of trips because my plane lacks known icing protections. I’m comfortable shooting an approach to minimums but icing is such a capricious and limiting problem for light aircraft.
I don't enjoy the TSA screening, but I sure don't share the perspective that it's worse than driving for 4-5 hours.
I flew from a small airport to Detroit several times this year. My perspective is probably colored by having someone pick me up each time, but it was like 3.5 hours of traveling to fly, with most of that being more or less relaxed, to avoid a 7 hour drive. It was almost cheaper just on gas (and certainly cheaper considering wear and tear).
Fly: 1.5hrs for Security / Rental pick up, 2 hrs Leg 1, 1 hr layover, 2 hrs leg 2. Total time: 6.5-7hrs if no delays or problems with aircraft. Both planes small CRJ Regional jets made for people under 100lbs and under 5ft 5in in height, I am neither. Nothing about being on a CRJ jet is "relaxed" at best I can be sure to get off with back pain, and leg pain. $850 for the round trip for airfare... + $250 in local economy rental fees for a car there. Total $1100
Car: 10 hrs of driving, Nice SUV with plently of room. $350 in Rental fees, $400 in Gas for the week (and this was when gas was over $4/gal). Total cost $750. I can leave anytime I want, extend anytime I want, Divert to so some sight seeing anytime I want, and never have to go through security.
It depends a ton on where and when. I had "The State of New York" as a client once, which required commuting from Maryland to Annapolis and staying for the week. It's about a 5 hour drive, vs a 1.5 hour flight, which seems like a slam dunk, but considering that the airport is a half hour away, and I had to arrive there an hour early for TSA, ride in a cramped plane with not enough leg room, then rent a car on the other end and drive a half an hour to the hotel, it was down to traffic to determine which method was faster re: total travel time.
I found the drive more relaxing, more comfortable, and since I'd need a car at the destination anyway, just about the same degree of practicality.
I basically determined then that 6 hours away was probably my breakeven point at which flying became obviously more practical, but even then it depends on the target airport, traffic, weather, etc.
I certainly don't blink at the prospect of flying from Maryland to San Francisco, and would almost never consider driving instead, but IMO it's hard to fault someone valuing their rights over their time that it downweights flying significantly more than it does in my rankings.
I should probably also factor in that our location affords us a great variety of places we can go by train, and anywhere obviously train-accessible usually makes that a strong option. New York makes almost zero sense to drive to, and while the big knock against trains are the cost, it works out when you consider the cost of parking in New York, and the convenience of showing up at the train station 5 minutes prior to departure.
I’ve attempted Chicago to Detroit 4 times via plane before I started just driving every time, I was severely delayed each time. The weather in both cities is fairly volatile, traffic between them isn’t bad, and I can leave when I want. I prefer the Amtrak but it only goes a few times a day.
I agree that 5 hours is marginal, especially if you have a large airport on both ends (It takes me 10 minutes to get to the small airport here and there is ~1 smallish flight being screened at a time, so there is no need to be particularly early).
I didn't state it very clearly, but I'm comparing the TSA screening to the 4-5 additional hours driving would entail over flying.
That's fair, for me security is never the issue with pre-check. It's getting to ORD or MDW via public transit or cab in crosstown traffic. It takes me almost an hour sometimes and at that point I could already be nearly a quarter of my way down the road.
We have travel to NYC from NC coming up. We did the math. With our layover in Charlotte it's a wash, with less uncertainty in arriving on time; taking I-95 than getting on a plane during snow season.
> I cant image flying that much. I am old enough to remember pre-911 flying and how much better it was before the TSA and their "Stand here with no shoes while we treat you like a criminal" procedures.
Off-topic, this got me thinking - usually when we discuss impacts of flights on climate change and solutions we get into discussion of cost and profits vs lives saved. Its a struggle to push trhough anything that costs money.
Yet after 9/11 we have put into place insanely expensive , inconvenient and restrictive system votually overnight. And the average amount of lives is saves is maybe zero, maybe a couple a year.
Why is it so easy to do the latter but so hard to do the former?
At least that racket pays the government directly.
They came up with another racket to skip further in the line lets a private company take a cut for bribing the government to let you skip to the front and buy back some of your time.
> At least that racket pays the government directly.
Yes and no? Yes, it creates jobs and pays people but it isn't like funds are being used to benefit society. They aren't being used to build roads or schools. There's no evidence to show that these funds are making flights safer either. We're giving up a lot of privacy for this and even giving up more, with the real ID act and pushes for facial recognition technologies. I think a lot of people, including me, would feel better about these inconveniences and the extra money we pay for them, if there was any real evidence to suggest that they actually made us safer. But since there isn't, after two decades of data, I wouldn't blame anyone for calling it a racket (as defined above).
But on top of that, there's further rackets like what you are referring to. But the government also participates in this directly (Clear is indirect) through the TSA precheck.
A racket can have multiple levels and multiple actors.
I'm not sure that this is true. There's two obvious ways that an IT department can measure this.
1) They can see people attacking the system. We can even often see what these people are attempting to do! A lot of security research is focused on this, figuring out what attackers are trying to do.
2) We have post hoc analysis. We can see lots of attacks and then provide an intervention and see if those decrease. Since terrorist attacks were black swan events you're right that we can't really measure the effect of TSA, but then again, do we need to address black swan events? At least we need to compare the costs and it is pretty clear that the yearly number of increased deaths due to driving alone is higher than the number of deaths from decades of terrorist attacks and hijackings.
I'd say we have pretty good data in both cases to make fairly reasonable conclusions about how effective these interventions are. There's a reason very few people question the need for an IT department. The ones that do don't question it for long after attempting to run without them.
I think you're missing part of the equation which I addressed. The whole reason IT departments implement security measures is because prior to their implementations they would have services consistently cut off. But even today you can see people attempting to access the networks. This is definitely measurable. We can see attempts to access specific ports, scanners, DDOS attempts, and a lot more. I'm not sure why you think this can't be measured. Measuring these attempted attacks is a major part of defense and even a bigger part of defense research. We don't have the same parallel in TSA but we do have some parallels in other areas of physical security. So honestly, I don't know what you're going on about because these easily demonstrable facts. Anyone who has run a home server has experienced this.
I got this free via a credit card, and the looks I got from the line as I was personally ushered past all of them was enough to make it a one-off thing. Heh.
I've yet to figure out how it's reasonable for the government to deny us our fourth amendment rights and then lease them back to us for $78, but I suppose I'm equally shocked at how inexpensive it is to violate those rights such that they've managed to make $78 / 5 years somehow profitable?
Furthermore, if this is a result of correctly interpreting the constitution…our lawmakers should have, and still should, immediately change the constitution.
We really need an explicit right to privacy. Third party doctrine is ridiculous as it applies to gmail, UPS, FedEx. TSA in general should be plainly unconstitutional. Americans should have reasonable rights even while crossing the border. Americans should still have the same rights vs. the US government when they’re not in America (not okay for FBI to tap my phone line while I’m in Germany, I still have the constitution protecting me as a U.S. citizen). Foreigners inside USA also should have full constitutional protections.
2nd amendment needs massive clarification, I don’t even care what just make it clear in plain language.
If we needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol…Why wasn’t one needed for weed?
How the Fuck did civil asset forfeiture get ruled to be legal? That needs an amendment.
Why don’t citizens get recompense when the government fucks up and takes all their shit when they read the address on the warrant wrong?
Why is the right to a speedy trial still take over a year often? And why are “innocent until proven guilty” people held in jail that whole time?
How is imprisoning people in Guantanamo forever with no trial constitutional?
What is ironic, I was at a small airport while back and the Pre-Check line was longer than the normal security line.... people in normal security were getting through faster....
I'm a sometimes frequent flyer but less often in the US, so I don't have any kind of pre-screening. I have never had a problem, other than the occasional line, with TSA. I actually have found them regularly polite and joking. I think this could be because I'm familiar with the procedures, and generally very well organized to go through screening.
There are lots of horror stories about flying, things can go wrong occasionally, personally I would fly anywhere that's > 3 hours or roughly the break even to get there faster, unless I need a car for some reason. If you are familiar with it it's really not as bad as the horror stories.
It is not the agents I have a problem with, it is the process. You are correct the agents are normally friendly and efficient. I have objections about the process from having to take all your crap out, take your belt off, shoes, no liquids, stand with your hand over your head while someone in another room passed millimeter waves through you taking a look at a near pornographic photo of you...
That does not seem like things a person not accused or convicted of a crime in a free society should have to be subjected to just to travel, that seems like something you would find in a Authoritarian dystopia novel not a free society
I opt-out of the scanner. Every time. It rarely delays me more than 10 minutes (and usually 3-5).
I personally think it’s an unreasonable search (meaning, there’s a less intrusive way to accomplish the legitimate goal that TSA has); it seems like they don’t want to have that tested in court, so the opt-out process avoids giving a pax that standing to sue over it.
I agree completely. Somehow I've decided flying isn't my hill to die on and so i just try and go though the process as efficiently as possible, which ends up making it relatively painless. We shouldn't have to put up with it though.
I always opt out. Very occasionally the screeners are grumpy, but usually completely indifferent or a little curious about why opt out (do you know something about the radiation?). The time difference is negligible from what I've seen.
I flew out very early one morning and put my toothbrush, etc, in a small plastic bag and stuffed it into my duffel.
The scanner detected the liquid so they pulled me to the side. As soon as the TSA agent saw the bag with the toothbrush she made a "ugh" sound, had an annoyed look on her face, then closed everything back up and let me through.
> Today if my destination is with in a 10hr drive from me, I am driving. Does not even really cost me that much time as with connections, and security it takes about as long to fly anyway that is assuming it is not delayed or cancelled.
I don't like flying either, but as someone who lives near SF I would never consider driving to San Diego for a meeting or conference. I have considered driving to LA, but it just doesn't make sense — especially if I'd have to pay $40-50/night to park my car once I'm there. Taking a flight from SJC to BUR is about as painless as it gets, and the last couple times I did it the planes were mostly empty.
If connections were involved I'd feel differently, but I wouldn't drive instead of taking a 1-2 hour direct flight. I'm curious to know what airport you're near and if most popular destinations involve connections. Or maybe I just don't have a nice enough car, to make the drive more enjoyable!
Yeah, we've done this for conference trips with the family, and it has been useful in that context. We've even gone all the way to San Diego, with an overnight stop partway to see relatives.
But I would never drive even to LA, even for a multi-day conference, if I were traveling solo.
Wow it’s so much easier in Australia. They upgraded the bag scanners recently so you don’t have to pull everything apart. Just chuck your bag down, stand in the scanner for a few seconds and it’s done. Never spent more than 10 minutes getting through security.
Honestly the scanner is the part I object to the most
Some US Airports have the new bag scanners, but you still have to remove your shoes, belt, and be scanned by the Millimeter Wave scanner while holding your hands over your head like a criminal
And you ok with that? you do not find any irony, or problem with a government agency more or less violating you but then saying "if you pay us we will stop"
Takes at least, in many cases, provide a public good. The leaky bucket (not sure if the bucket even can hold water at this point though) still transports water. The TSA does not provide any service to the public. On the other hand, they provide substantial inconvenience, drive up costs, and end up killing more people (since driving is more risky than flying). I get the joke you're making, but let's not pretend that taxes are the same thing. They are highly inefficient but the TSA has negative efficiency.
Have you flown in the US though? Almost every flying experience I've had in Australia (and I'm platinum with both the biggies) is significantly better than the US from start to finish.
San Jose (CA) is rolling this out also. No need to take off shoes or take laptops/liquids out of your bag. They're not using it all the time yet, but when they are it's a breeze.
> I cant image flying that much. I am old enough to remember pre-911 flying and how much better it was before the TSA and their "Stand here with no shoes while we treat you like a criminal" procedures.
Frequent fliers don't deal with any of that. The first thing you grab is TSA Pre, which is offered alone or part of Global Entry (or NEXUS if you don't mind interviewing along the US/Canada border). This restores your security experience to pre-9/11. You don't take anything off, or out, no laptops, etc.
The application fee for TSA Pre and GE is waived with most high-end credit cards.
Then to make sure you don't have to wait in line, you sign up for CLEAR which automatically takes you to the front of the TSA Pre line. This fee is also waived by the Amex Platinum.
Then when you get back, Global Entry or NEXUS ensure you don't wait in the immigration queues either.
Yes I understand all of those programs, why should have to sign up for all those things. Aside from the inherent classism of it all, which I am often shocked how dual minded people are when they complain about wealth but then absently support these kinds of programs. It is inherently anti-democratic for the government to implement these programs when they should be treating all individuals the same
Then there are is the privacy, and constitutional issues with all of those programs, and a leniently of other things that I am sure have no problems for unprincipled persons. sadly I am someone of principle, and ethics
> ... why should we have to sign up for all those things?
Yeah for sure. I agree you certainly shouldn't have to.
> Aside from the inherent classism of it all, which I am often shocked how dual minded people are when they complain about wealth but then absently support these kinds of programs.
I'm not super convinced by this because honestly flying is a luxury product. TSA Pre is like $80 for 5 years or about 1/4 of the average cab fare from town to the airport per year. The fact services like this cost more money because they get you priority access to a luxury good doesn't bother me. Remember you pay taxes and fees just to be on airport property (baked into the ticket), so this extra tax? Meh.
The core service should still of course be better, but it does make sense that your most frequent and ofc lowest-risk users have a more streamlined experience.
> Then there are is the privacy, and constitutional issues with all of those programs.
I guess. My perspective is the relevant agencies all have this information already. They're getting manifests from the airlines and they have your record, travel history, etc. Are they really getting anything new through you signing up? Open to your take though.
You can pay a bribe to opt out of security theater. No naked scanner, shoes on, laptop stays in bag.
Pre check lasts five years and my free credit card reimburses the fee.
The card also gives me a free checked bag (which I rarely use). I pack in a roller bag which I often gate check.
Still no water through tsa which is retarded. Guys, just sniff it. Or better yet make the traveler take a big swig. Anything dangerous isn’t even going to make it to the metal detector let alone on the flight.
> Today if my destination is with in a 10hr drive from me, I am driving.
Same. It's not just the "stand here with no shoes": it's being treated like cattle.
So I bought myself a very nice, second hand, high-end luxury car and it's basically first-class. Except the sound insulation and sound system in my car is much better than in a plane. And I leave exactly when I want. And I take a break when I want.
> the TSA and their "Stand here with no shoes while we treat you like a criminal" procedures.
Get TSA Precheck or Clear.
Security takes ~10 minutes with TSA Pre Check and 2-3 minutes with clear. There's no way it's not worth it even if you only travel once a year with 2 flights.
Note that your emissions per km are 2-3 times higher when driving than when flying (and the infrastructure and car manufacturing are probably even worse)
this year I purchased a low-milage 99 Ford Explorer XLT for $650 and put a couple thousand into it (guy thought he was taking advantage of me). I didn't have to put nearly that much, but I did for the purpose of long-term maintenance as I want to have this vehicle for years.
The back is big enough to fit a twin mattress, so I did exactly that. I then purchased one of those bags you can strap onto the top. I can now do things like drive down to water that's 4 or 5 hours away and stay for the weekend before coming back (gf loves fishing).
w/i the last month I took it on a 9 hour drive down and back (so 18 hours total) and it ran extremely well for a vehicle that old.
I'm super happy with it and it's one of those things that rolls around in your head until you finally commit and you wish you had done it sooner. So for me, now, unless there's a time reason I wouldn't fly even outside of a 10 hour drive.
And a large part of that is, as you said, the way you're treated like a criminal.
Just thinking about it, I can't wait for summer to show up :)
In 1998, I worked for a while on the flight cancelation software for United Airlines. The number of factors that come into play in determining which flights should get canceled for, e.g., bad weather is fascinating (flights are always canceled in pairs so that planes and crew won’t have to deadhead to be where they need to be). The one that sticks with me the most was that having a high-milage frequent flier on a flight would make that flight less likely to be canceled.
Getting crew around is a interesting problem, it is not long ago that the railways in the Netherlands had to stay still for a day because their crew planning software had broken. And as I understand getting it to match up is a pretty big NP-complete problem so it can take long time to solve it.
I once sat next to a SkyWest pilot on a flight. I was asking him how they assigned pilots and crews to flights. He told me that they actually had an internal auction system where crew members bid on "trips". A "trip" is a sequence of several flights over the course of a few days to a week that will all be crewed by the same people. Individual employees were allocated "money" to bid with (not real money, of course) according to seniority, so more senior crew would almost always get the most favorable trips, e.g. those composed entirely of non-redeye flights, etc.
Just to be clear, this was the software that made the decision about cancellation? (Otherwise, it would be somewhat expected that flights of frequent fliers are less likely cancelled. I suppose they learn to avoid those flights.)
It was the software for flight cancellations. The variables that go into the decision making are such that it would be difficult for anyone on the outside to predict what the most likely flight to be canceled would be.
Interestingly, there was a case of this with my wife’s trip to Mexico where her flight on Aeromexico departed on Thursday while a united flight at the same time was canceled since they couldn’t guarantee that the return flight would be able to travel in a timely fashion.
Having reached 1K status with United this year (many trips from SFO to IAD, LAX, EWR, ATL, and now HND at the end of the year), I do question if the status is even worth it. I feel like United (and other airline carriers) already have way more data and know how to optimize the seats so that these extra flights these passengers take gives them a bigger profit at the end. 1K status gets you early boarding and extra free checked luggage for sure but the free upgrades rarely happen, especially for popular lines like SFO to EWR.
With Delta, I actually love boarding a "full flight" where they start calling for gate-checked baggage. I will often ask the desk agent if I can gate check even if they aren't calling for it yet, sometimes they'll do it.
Once you hit Delta status tiers you end up with enough free bags that you can skip asking there and just set it up before you go.
If you don’t have status, your strategy is a great one. Delta is pretty good at not trying to charge you in that circumstance. It also helps the flyer’s case that their A321 mainstay was configured with a cabin that provides insufficient overhead bins.
Funny. I know my suitcase will always fit the right way in a 737 bin (front upwards, top handle facing the aisle) ... but on an A321 I almost always have to lay the handle to the right, wheels left, taking up unnecessary horizontal space, because the upper part of the bin isn't deep enough to close given top thickness of the suitcase - even though it looks like it fits in the lower lip before you try to close it. So these days if I see I'm getting on an Airbus, I have to try to get in early and grab the extra bin space. Whereas if it's a Boeing I'll usually be at the bar until 2 minutes before they close the gate..
I definitely do this if I have a layover with a long wait or have checked luggage anyways. Why would you add 10-20 min extra wait after landing to not pull a stroller for a few Min?
The feedback I regularly give United is that a far more valuable perk would be to make groups 4 and 5 board first but not allow them to use overhead space (gate checking).
I have gold on United and get CPUs more often than not but these are often short flights, or even regional routes on Skywest, so that's really a crapshoot depending on the route, I think.
I'll take the other benefits, too, and they're "worth it" as long as you don't spend a bunch of money to get them. There's a real dollar benefit to free Economy Plus, checked bags and the mileage multiple; but of course how much that's worth to you depends on what's important to you, let alone the intangibles like pre-boarding or better customer service.
So far, the status and miles I've earned haven't involved spending any money I wouldn't have otherwise. With the sometimes exception of spending a little more to stick with United. Which is of course the point of a loyalty program. But I've never spent more on that increment than I've recovered in benefit on that flight (like from free Economy Plus). But who knows? Maybe I'll get so addicted I'll be tempted to make a "mileage run".
I've got platinum on united, and companion pass on SWA. I can tell you YES status is worth it. it's not really about the early boarding, or free bagage, or that BS. It's about being able to call up the airline, outside of my company's travel service, and just tell them what I want and they do it.
Also, all those doubling of miles and other perks allow me to get upgrades for free so when I do have flights I really need to sleep on I can take first class.
it depends. I don't fly enough to look into the details, but a few years ago I ended up reaching the second lowest tier on Delta (gold iirc), and I would get free upgrades about half the time for my flights that year. Routes were from seattle to all over the place (NYC, SF, LA, ATL, etc) and back.
2nd lowest is gold; 2nd highest is platinum (behind diamond). I usually get to platinum and, except for the bus routes (to/from ATL), I get first class upgrades on almost 75% of my domestic segments. Add in ATL segments (full of diamond flyers) and it’s probably down to the 50% you mention for gold. It’s very route specific.
I have noticed a lot of domestic first-class seats or post-purchase upgrades have become cheaper during COVID to get the airline some revenue from that seat rather than upgrading you or I.
I did this a bunch during the cheap award flights during the pandemic, when they started counting those toward status points.
I basically skipped getting a coworking spot for a month and would hop on random flights I could book like SAN-JFK round trip same day on delta for only 16,000 skymiles (would net around 5,000 mqms). I would almost always get bumped to first and Deltas wifi is reliable enough to work from the air.
At this point I’ve banked enough MQMs that I just have to hit the spend min on my Amex (easy when you are self employed and can pay taxes on it) to keep platinum for the next 3 years without any flying.
No matter how hard I try, my productivity on a plane drops 1 order of magnitude. The dry air and altitude changes are weighted much higher than the quality of the wifi connection.
The pandemic has been an odd thing for status, especially on Delta. I had diamond on Delta in 2020 which was a mix of MQMs plus spending over $250k on a Delta Amex. They extended that Diamond into 2021, and 2022 for free, and also rolled over all of the MQMs. More MQMs stacked up because you get them at 25k and 50k AMEX spend, so going into 2023 I had 250k+ MQMs even though I flew very little.
2023 still required getting past the 250k AMEX spend to get the diamond MQD waiver, and that one change (from 25k to 250k) has really cut down on the number of Diamond flyers I see now. I'm back to regular flying now so those MQMs will last me for a while.
At a credit card fee of 1.98%, that's a non-trivial amount of money to have to spend on fees depending on how much you pay in taxes (looks like IRS charges based on processor but it is between 1.86-1.98%)
In practice that fee works out to at most a $500 buy-in for Platinum status on Delta. You can also immediately opt for a $200 travel voucher as your Platinum benefit. I could see why some might think it's worth it.
Starting in 2023, mere platinum doesn’t get you lounge access on international flights, but the affiliate credit cards do. That’s worth $20+ in real value on each international segment (the sticker price is higher, but there’s at least $20 of convenience and comfort to wait in the club over the boarding area).
I once worked in job which included constant travel. More than once I saw one of my colleagues take a flight the wrong way around the earth-- e.g. flying London to DC via Japan-- in order to get the miles they needed to maintain their status.
Being on an airplane has always made me feel a little ill (from fumes or reduced air pressure?)-- even though at one point I was regularly flying cross country multiple times per week, so I can't imagine voluntarily spending more time in one than strictly necessary.
Last night we watched "Up in the Air" (don't believe the claims that it's a comedy-- it's a drama, and a good one) and I found its depiction of a life of constant air travel and people in the milage rat race quite familiar.
Having done travel US to/from Japan and India, I can’t imagine doing that either. Even in business class lay-flat seats, it’s still a miserable experience and in premium or normal economy, it’s even worse.
When I first arrived in Tokyo from Detroit, my thought was “well, I guess I live here now, because I’m sure not taking that return flight…”
We flew first or business on any trip over a certain duration (and more often depending on people's willingness to use their miles)-- but still. Business class on an international meant that there was at least a chance I could sleep some on a redeye and be able to stagger into a meeting some flight fan scheduled right after our arrival; but it doesn't actually make the experience a good one.
> When I first arrived in Tokyo from Detroit, my thought was “well, I guess I live here now, because I’m sure not taking that return flight…”
Haha. I've been right there. I've only been back to Europe twice after relocating to the west coast (from DC)-- flying from SFO to Edinburgh was a final straw for me. The trip back I tried to work it out so I could stay on the east coast a couple days before finishing my trip but couldn't make the schedule work.
Does "conservation advocacy" mean environment stuff? The carbon emissions of unproductive flying must be immense.
Airlines should let people just pay the fare and get the miles without flying. Win for the people (saves their time and money), win for the airline (they save on marginal price of jet fuel and food/drinks), and win for the environment.
Many airlines will let you buy miles, but (at least at American Airlines), these don't count towards status. I wonder why they don't offer that. Maybe to make it seem less explicitly transactional? https://www.aa.com/aadvantage-program/buy-gift-transfer/en_U...
I don’t listen to greens ever since I moved back to my hometown to find they hadn’t raised the minimum wage in the decade I’d been gone or really do anything of note but hell so loudly about nuclear energy they split the vote so pro fracking ppl won and [checks notes] decriminalized weed?
(No rental protections, no reforms aside from ones like rebates for a hybrid that benefit rich white professor types)
We need to reward folks who go child free or car free as much as we reward companies that frack instead of blow coal.
Being precise, anything but having reached a point where you could stop working forever without having to reduce your standard of living means being part of the unwashen masses, so, no.
Another indicator of not being part of the unwashen masses is being able to afford business/first class, so you get the priority security check lane a la carte.
For me getting to the United States involves going through another big airport (because the airport in my town does not have a direct flight to the US).
For my specific situation, Etihad usually ended up having the most favorable travel duration, connection time, arrival and departure time, price etc. With Etihad, it's about 4 hours from my hometown to Abu Dhabi (AUH), and 15 hours from there to LAX.
It only took me a couple of to and fro journeys to get the silver card status. And by next year I was a gold card member, with lounge access in Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles. It was hilarious because I was only making a couple of journeys a year.
Also, I see comments here about the TSA screening situation.
Did you know that there's a US customs & immigration + TSA counter at Abu Dhabi?! If you're traveling to the US from Abu Dhabi, you have to get all the immigration processes (passport/visa verification and other stuff) done from the American consular officers at Abu Dhabi [1].
On your passport, the port of entry will be marked as AUH.
And the aircraft will fly as a domestic flight into the domestic terminal of your destination in the US. No immigration procedure in the US because it's already been done before the flight.
Multiple advantages to this:
1. If you anyway have a connecting flight to the US at AUH and have a couple of hours of waiting time, you can get the immigration process done whilst waiting for your connection.
2. (Convoluted logic follows) If for whatever reason you're denied entry to the US, in my case atleast, I would only have a 4 hours return time back to my hometown, as opposed to a 24+ hours of return time if I were denied entry once I physically reached the US. That's after traveling 24+ hours to get there in the first place. Cheaper and more convenient for everyone involved.
3. After your 15 hour flight to the US, you can take your luggage and walk out instead of having to go through the US immigration and customs processes when you're tired after the long journey.
> Did you know that there's a US customs & immigration + TSA counter at Abu Dhabi?! [...] [a]nd the aircraft will fly as a domestic flight into the domestic terminal of your destination in the US.
This is also the case when you fly out of Shannon airport[0]. Incidentally, if you're arriving at LAX, there's another way to "bypass" immigration & customs, but it'll cost you dearly[1].
Also, I think similar strategies have been adopted for verifying the contents of containers (as in, container ships) to ease the traffic at destination ports in the US.
Like, they verify the containers at the source port and lock it (using some kind of high tech mechanism to prevent tampering).
Abu Dhabi — a place with pre-clearance which I've been talking about — is in Asia :)
However, if you intend to travel to Eastern part of Asia (Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan etc) going via Abu Dhabi is inefficient; from LAX it's 15 hours to AUH, and then 10 hours to NRT. Direct LAX to NRT is just around 12 hours.
Seems like these deadweight flights are self-defeating. The $1,300 for the lightning trip would instead pay for a lot of checked bags and seat upgrades.
It all depends on how often you fly and where you go. A close friend of mine who flies around the country weekly for business was just a few miles below achieving Diamond status on Delta for the year, and all of the free upgrades to 1st class, other freebies, Crown Room access, ect made it well worth it to take a flight to nowhere in order to maintain this level.
It's commercial pasengers taking extra trips to retain FF perks.
> Their goal: Fly and spend enough to maintain or upgrade their elite status with the carrier they fly most, with the promise of upgrades, free checked bags and bonus miles for the following year.
The title given currently The Frequent Fliers Who Go To Extremes had me wondering if this was to be tales of daring do from those who clock up a million+ line kms in flight on a routine basis.
No drama, FWiW I'm familiar with the history of the phrase from Middle English, through Chaucer, Spenser, and Walter Scott .. and I'd suggest "misprint in the 16th Century" is a bit simplistic as language in that region in those times had an exuberance of spellynges until Samuel Johnson took a stab at nailing jelly to the wall.
I toss a mental coin any time I come to type such a phrase and note that we still translate the progenitor "dorryng do" as 'daring to do' and have derring-do littered throughout every volume of Ripping Yarns so it seems passable to spilt the difference. :-)
People typically achieve travel status on their employers dime.
Since the individual personally benefits from gaining status (and reward points), it’s not surprising that people do things not in their employers interest (buying a more expensive ticket, or taking a longer flight) since they benefit.
I fly premium economy from Europe to the US 3-4 times per year, and this is usually enough to keep my top-tier status. I fly SAS (preferably) and I try to fly on less popular times of the year/days of the week, which increases my chances of getting upgraded. I avoid connections in the US if I can because I rarely get good seats as a non-United ff.
Seems very wasteful to be taking extra, unnecessary flights for perks, no matter how big. I don’t care about the fliers’ money, that’s theirs to do what they want with. But the environmental costs are non-nil (even accounting for the fact that those flights would be going regardless of if they fly on them) and can’t be worth the perks for these privileged few.
It does work harder by weight carried. There is some induced drag for every pound of lift and, in unaccelerated flight (most of it), lift and weight are exactly balanced.
My piston-engine airplane goes about 3% faster on the same fuel flow (power) at the end of a long flight than the start. That’s the effect of reduced drag from the lower weight.
Flying in a plane is basically the most carbon intensive thing normal people do. It's something like 1/4 ton of CO2 per hour per person. Per capita carbon emission in the US are ~15ton/yr.
Today if my destination is with in a 10hr drive from me, I am driving. Does not even really cost me that much time as with connections, and security it takes about as long to fly anyway that is assuming it is not delayed or cancelled. Of the 10 flights I have taken in the last 3 years or so, 60% of them had some kind of delay or cancellation during one of the legs.
Plus side I have gotten very good at packing density so I can take a weeks worth of provisions in my carry on backpack easily. No checked bags for me....