Air travel is better than it ever has been.

People who complain about air travel today and compare it to the past are horribly misguided. The state of air travel today is way better than it ever has been.

I understand when you’re sitting in your cramped seat and eating crappy food that it’s easy to imagine yourself getting greeted with a glass of champagne, escorted to a comfortable seat, and politely being asked how you’d like your filet cooked.

The problem is that’s not actually who you’d be. More realistically, you’d be spending 20 hours on a bus, because the overwhelming majority of people in those days could never even hope to afford to fly.

You can get a direct flight from NYC to LA for like $125 these days. Back in the day, the same flight would cost about $2000-3000 when adjusted for inflation. If comfort is important to you, then great, you can get a business ticket for about $1000-1500, or half what the standard ticket cost 50-60 years ago.

And anybody complaining about waits and delays, do you honestly think that stuff didn’t happen back in the day? I get it’s super annoying to sit on the taxiway for 45 minutes on either end, and that your 6 hour flight took more like 8. But you know what? At least it was a direct flight. Back in the past it would probably have involved 2-3 layovers, and you might have gotten there in 11 hours, if it even was on time (which it very likely wasn’t).

The quality of flying hasn’t gotten worse. It’s gotten significantly better. It’s gotten better because airlines have prioritized giving customers what they actually want: affordable flights which get you from A-B as directly as possible. Most customers shop exclusively in that way, and they’ve adjusted their approach accordingly. They haven’t done this because they hate you or don’t care, they do this because if they didn’t, you wouldn’t fly with them.

I would caution anybody who thinks flying should be more like it was in the past, because in all likelihood, you’d be on the outside looking in.