Yahoo Autos Flying Sucks
In this job, we travel. We go on comparison tests and stay at seedy hotels and eat cheap food. Or we go on press events where the accommodations are exponentially swankier and the food is fancy and free. Some of us love the travel, and some of us despise it, but there’s one thing most all of us agree on: Flying sucks. Which is one more reason to be suspicious of all the car-sharing, ride-sharing, communally owned schemes that are currently floating about. Because those schemes are going to make personal travel more like its cramped, stinky commercial counterpart.
Used on occasion, to travel distances that are virtually impossible with slower vehicles, the hassle of flying is worth it. I’m writing this from a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, and I admit, it wasn’t practical to drive the 7497 miles to get here. Commercial aircraft are dang near miraculous: massive tubes thrown into the sky on efficient wings with massive high-bypass jet engines. And they do it over and over again every day, virtually always safely.
But it’s such a hassle to fly. There’s lots and lots of waiting in line. Your life must be modified to meet the airline schedule; you will submit identification to even check a bag; you are told when to wait, when to board, where to sit, when you’re cleared to get up and go to the bathroom and when it’s okay to change the seat back angle. You don’t choose who to sit with, whether or not it’s okay to stop and look at the scenery, or if maybe you’d like to take a different route. And if you don’t do what the flight crew instructs you to do, they can restrain and arrest you. Then, remember that bag you checked? Get off an A380 at the other end of the journey and there are more than 500 other people waiting for their stuff with you.
And yet all that hassle is worthwhile because you’re going to get some place at more the 500 mph. But imagine if you had to deal with it every single day. Not to get to some far-off and exotic place, but to your work cubicle, Red Lobster, or the massage-oil superstore.
I’m convinced an automotive world structured around ride sharing will be as miserable as flying United between Chicago and Terre Haute. And not just occasionally, but always. And maybe even worse.
Though they control your every move and very life, the airlines are at least a little bit concerned about your happiness. They want you to spend money with them again. They won’t do much to make you happy and they know you’ll dump them for some budget brand flying aircraft built during the Johnson Administration if it means saving two bucks, but at least they have some interest in your consumer satisfaction. And they want you to arrive where you’re going safely if for no other reason than that crashes use up aircraft and result in prolonged litigation.
Imagine a car-sharing world run by the airlines, but without any incentive to keep you happy. You want to be picked up by a “comfortable” car, do you? Well, that will be extra. A luxury vehicle will cost you even more than that. Maybe you want to buy some tequila over at that liquor store where the clerk greets you by name—not necessarily a good thing, by the way—but the car sharing company has a “co-marketing partnership” with BevMo and has programmed your transportation module to go there after searching your phone to determine your intent. To save a few dollars, maybe the vehicle will pick up a few more riders along the way—no matter how foul their hygiene.
The commercial aviation industry is, thankfully, at least commercial. What if your car sharing system is run by the government instead without even the profit motive to contain it? Imagine an automotive world run by the TSA.
There is a reason why the truly wealthy buy and operate private jets. That reason is because they’re worth it. And I guarantee that if the car-sharing world comes to pass there will be the ground-bound equivalent of Gulfstream G650s for the super-rich. Transportation pods they control, that go where they want when they want, and never smell like a wet Rottweiler.
For all its inefficiencies, environmental costs, frustrations, and sheer lunacy, the current state of automobile-dom is that we all have our own private land jets. Cars and trucks that go precisely where we want when we want; that feature all the comforts we’re will to pay for or go without; that never ask us for a picture ID or x-ray our bags. Cars aren’t cheap but we buy them because they’re worth it.
Before giving ourselves over to a world of autonomously directed ride sharing, we ought to consider how to preserve the best aspects of what it is we have now. Maybe we ought to fight against a future so many in government and industry seem to think is inevitable.
To get to Australia, I boarded a Qantas A380 and was directed to seat 80B, a middle seat on the lower deck in economy. The flight between Los Angeles and Sydney lasted for 15 hours. Not fun. In a few hours I will board a Delta 777 and head back—business class this time.
Australia is a wonderful land of exotic animals and friendly people. But I wish I could have driven here.
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