The Holidays are some of the busiest travel days in the year.  The airlines make bank this time of year as travelers pack the airports and fill each of the flights to capacity. This also means that the airport themselves do well as the various shops and eating establishments will be full of hungry travelers and people that need to pick up one more Christmas gift for that special someone.

As someone who recently traveled to Kansas City, Missouri I realize there is plenty of reasons to complain when it comes to airline travel.  This is my personal list and certainly leaves room for different opinions or thoughts.  One thing I will add is the fact the people behind the scenes, doing the work, are not to blame.  On my trip I encountered hard working individuals that were stretched way to thin due to a lack of work force. 98% of these individuals want your trip to be great and do everything they can to ensure that.  My belief that the problem stems from the folks in the ivory towers making the decisions. Enough of that- here is my list in no particular order:

  • Seat size: The airplanes of today are still built for the body size of the people back in the 70’s.  As society “super sizes”, I think the airline industry needs to grow as well.
  • Lost luggage: I hear more and more horror stories of people getting to their destination and having to wait for two or three days to get their luggage.  What this has created is a bunch of travelers that now carry on everything.  I will get to why that is a problem.
  • Carry on space: Okay, let’s get to it now. Unless you are in the first half of the passengers to get on the plane, forget about finding space within your area to store your carry on. The last flight I took they were requiring all small bags be put under the seat in front of you (meaning even less leg room) because the overhead bins were full. I check my bags (except my lap top computer) so this didn’t affect me.
  • Landing and departing on opposite ends of the airport: Traveling from Montana usually means we are traveling on a smaller plane and therefore will land at one terminal and then need to make the OJ Simpson Hertz sprint to get to our connecting flight that is most often in a different zip code. I know that nothing can be done about this, just thought I would throw it in there.

Like I said earlier, this is my list and there is room for many more.  Give me your list for a future follow up story. randall.bogden@townsquaremedia.com