There is clearly no viable alternative in speed to air travel these days. Train, car, even speed boat can get you from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’, yes. And on some short distances, given existence of speed train, a plane may be merely equal to ground option. Yet in pretty much every other case it has no alternative.
It is because of this and because we are so hung up on how quickly time flies and we really cannot afford loosing it that we are willing to accept all the pain, misery and outright humiliation of traveling in a plane.
We are forced to get to the airport hours before departure, may easily be forced to spend unspecified amount of time waiting for a take-off clearance, end up spending hours in chairs that are barely comfortable with neighbors that may or may not share your hygiene preferences. We are not free to adjust micro climate of our travel, we cannot escape the smells of food being served, commotion of drinks being provided, lights being on when we want to sleep, queues to the rest rooms, noisy brats or kids throwing tantrums.
Shelling out triples and more for a rip-off called “business class” only gets you so less of annoyances above, mostly allowing for slightly more space, a little fewer jabs of elbows and more attention of attendants. Yet the reason you sometimes decide on paying up the extra is not because what you get is so much better, it is because alternative is so much worse. It is choosing and paying for a lesser evil.
This is clearly just a rant, I offer you no revolutionary alternative. I don’t suggest that we need to invest and actively use alternatives like speed trains, air ships, busses. I am merely an air traveller who just had close to enough…