Air travel has never been the same since deregulation in the 80’s. Remember People’s Express? As the first discount carrier, people were amazed at the low fares; what I noticed were the brown bag meals that you had to purchase. It’s been all down hill ever since. Now I’m sitting on the tarmac while maintenance crews are repairing the hydraulics on the plane. The clock is ticking and the probability of meeting my connection becomes increasingly remote. This is the 4th time out of 5 flights this year that this has happened, and it’s the second time with Delta where a mechanical problem has left us waiting on the gate. It’s awful because I can’t rebook without deplaning and abandoning this flight -that option doesn’t improve the odds of me getting home. The other option is to wait it out and get to Memphis and try to get a seat on another flight 5 hours later or rebook on a myriad of different hub options.

I remember a time when traveling by coach still meant reasonable comfort and space. It meant a hot meal on any flight over two hours. It meant flight attendants who weren’t frazzled by having to be anger management specialists. It meant flying with a better class of passenger. Flying used to be fun. Now it’s as appealing as traveling by bus.

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