I just HATE air travel

I had been warned by recent travelers that getting on an airplane was a hellish experience, and they were right.  I prepared in advance, packing all liquids in my checkable suitcase, printing out my boarding pass in advance and arriving at the O'Hare airport 2 hours in advance. 

It was an exercise in futility.  The airport was like an anthill of people with luggage. My boarding pass entitled me to get on the end of a long line and wait for an agent.  Abandoning that idea, I went to the computer terminals, swiped my card and checked by bag that way. 

Why don't the airlines simply force passengers to strip naked and issue us orange jumpsuits before they lock us in the plane? It would be easier than standing in a line, cleaning out all my pockets of metal pens, a watch, change and my belt.  Then I had to take my shoes off.  I wanted a private changing room to disrobe in.  At the checkpoint they took away my Tide spot remover pen, but ignored my 1-oz. bottle of eye drops and 2 oz. bottle of eyeglass spray cleaner.  Luggage began to pile up behind me as I hurriedly got dressed and repacked.

I got onto my plane to New York but when I arrived at LaGuardia, my luggage did not.  Naturally, the bag contained medicine, fresh clothes and toiletries.  At the baggage claim I saw the American Airlines ad, "We know why you fly."  That's right, because I don't have any choice. Next time I'm taking a train, the bus or driving a car.

The Accursed Airlines delivered my bag at 2:30 AM, waking me from a anxious night's sleep.  Just what I didn't need the night before a 3-hour presentation.

Now I read that it's OK to bring onboard a travel-size 3-oz. container of lotion, mouthwash, perfume, shampoo, and toothpaste.  Big freakin' deal.  How about letting me bring a bottle of water or my nice hot latte?  How about mustard for my sandwich?

Comments

[Rich]

We could spend our entire national budget on bumping up the TSA and, and some point, something or someone would still get through. Had we been looking for box cutters on 9-11 I believe the attacks would still have happened. We need to learn to be proactive and anticipate what's coming next rather than reacting to what happened yesterday. Until we do that, we're still vulnterable, whether we can bring our $10 airport lattes on board or not.

[Lisa Solomon]

I couldn't agree more. With each new set of airline travel restrictions, the use of webinars and remote meetings (discussed in your prior post "Computer Desktop Brings Remote Meetings to the Masses" [http://pm.typepad.com/professional_marketing_bl
/2006/04/computer_deskto.html)] and your 10-step Checklist for Marketing Online [http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleCategoryID=13&ArticleID=502]) will likely increase. In fact, I'd be very interested to see figures on the correlation between terrorist events involving air travel and signups for services such as WebEx and GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar.