Traveling fun

Collaboration ease needs to get better, because air travel is getting more frustrating. I and others that I work with are spending more and more extra nights in hotels or extra time at airports due to delays. Yes, the weather cannot be helped, but because of the cutbacks in flights and staff, the airlines (my experience is mostly with Delta) seem to be unable to handle anything imperfect in their planned schedules. Because they are flying a lot more regional jets, the regionals cannot fly in marginal weather for the mainline jets causing delays, plus fewer seats exist to roll people over for later flights.

Thursday night, Delta should have changed me to fly through Atlanta instead of my original itinerary through Cincinnati. Rather than missing my flight by 10 minutes in Cincinnati because we had to wait 15 minutes on a flight attendant to fly in from another flight, I would have had 2 chances to get home through Atlanta. Instead, I spent the night at a $40 per night hotel as a distressed traveler and then spent Friday trying to find a way home.

This scenario isn't new to travelers of any frequency, but it feels like it happens more often. The vacation travelers are played up in the media as a great way to travel rather than by car. The families trying to get back from Disney World are frustrated. Travel by air has become just like Greyhound. It is crowded, confusing, and you cannot expect much service. Now, you might even pay for peanuts.

My range for driving is getting larger and larger. Before it was 4 hours, now it is 6. Maybe I will stretch it to 8. One person I sat next to said that their company policy had changed to 7 hours. They calculated that their employees lost 7 hours for any flight when the time to get to the airport early and delays were included.

According to the live earth web sites, less air travel means less of a carbon impact. I can kill 2 birds with one stone (using my cliche allowed for the day). I try collaborating a little less in person even though you need to for some work. And by not traveling as much, I think that I will live a little longer as a result, with a few less gray hairs.