Plane Conversations

Recently, I had to be in New York City. My meeting was scheduled for 10:00 am EST. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and none of the commercial airlines had flights that would get me to New York early enough for my meeting that morning.  As a result, I was forced to fly in the night before.

I had to leave my home two hours before scheduled departure time to get to the airport then park my car and get through security in time to catch my flight. The flight to New York took five hours because of delays and connections. Upon arriving, I had to spend $75 on a cab and 45 minutes to get to my hotel which cost $210 for one night’s stay. The next day I spent $25 on a simple breakfast and $40 to get from the hotel to my meeting place in New York.

After my meeting, I had to take yet another cab (for $75) to get back to the airport two hours before scheduled departure time in order to get through security on to find that the flight was delayed. The trip home took another five hours because of delays and connections. I had to pay $20 for parking my car and I got home late that night, tired and worn out. My productivity level the following day was affected and it took me a full day to get back into my normal healthy routine.

The airline ticket was $589, parking, hotel and meals totaled close to $500. Out of pocket cost were over $1,000. However, the higher cost was my time. From start to finish I spent a total of 18 useless hours (not including sleep time the night before) traveling to a two hour meeting. The cost of my time and the inconvenient experiences far exceeded the out of pocket cost of travel.

The cost of this broken air travel system to the traveling public in the United states is enormous.

1. Over 140 million hours of productive passenger time lost each year with a pricetag of over $4 Billion for businesses.
2. Tourism industry in the United States has lost 200,000 jobs and $98 billion in revenue because of the poor quality of our national transportation service.
3. Productive time lost to the ineffective United States air travel system is only the tip of the iceberg. Billions are lost every year because of illness, fatigue and stress caused by the existing “system” of air travel.

I am not sure that there is a better way for the commercial airline industry. However, having once owned my own jet, I know that private aviation is much more efficient and a much better experience. But private aviation is too expensive…..unless the entire private aviation industry changed its system. Social technology will enable private aviation to become social for the masses if the industry could just see it.