2015-06-07 – When did air travel get so awful?

Yes, I know. It’s been a gradual process. I loved to fly back in the 1970s. We used to go to the airport just for fun. There was no security. There was leg room. You didn’t use carry-ons because checking your bags and retrieving them was a breeze. They fed you decent food.

Then came the PATCO strike and the breaking of the union and deregulation and 9/11 and Homeland Security and shoe bombs and TSA. Now, flying is like having an illness and dying. The plane itself is like a coffin without legroom.

On my last flight, I noticed that even the air is different.

It is strangely humid. But not meteorological humidity. Humidity from human sweat. But not the healthy sweat of a gym, where people can move their limbs. Sweat of stasis.

Human-idity.

Air that causes a thin layer of greasy plastic to form on your skin. And burn your eyes. And coat the air passages and alveoli in your lungs. As you turn off your why-fi and try to breath in airplane mode.

Gasp.