For those just joining us… who paid for their pleasure or business flights some months ago… relax, the sky is not falling.
For those pricing out that Christmas vacation or trans-continental business trip, hold onto to your in-flight queasy bag real tight because you are going to need it.
Because it is not like the sky is actually falling – it is just that everything about air travel (and I mean everything) is going up, up, up…
Buying your ticket is the easy part.
Thinking of a flight to Calgary from Vancouver? Ok, that is easy.
$300 for starters.
Fuel surcharge? Could be anything from $75 to $300 depending on how far you are going? Baggage? You may by paying $25 and up for each bag in the near future. Toss in a security charge, an airport improvement fee and a wild and cryptic assortment of mystery fees that would take one worried looking travel agent an hour to explain (and that could cost you by the minute if you call the 1-900 help line!)
It is like the perfect storm – a few thousand feet below the stratosphere… somewhere in the jet stream. Except in reality, the real trouble is on the ground – In America… where millions are fed up with the TSA shake-downs, the illogical levels of security and paranoia. 40 million fewer domestic air trips in America in the last 2 years. American visits to Canada are down 65% over the last 2 years. These people are scared to death and are staying at home where they are safe from the bogey man… and the in flight entertainment.
Sigh.
My wife and I just finished paying for our tickets away this Christmas – and we figured it would be ever so slightly more expensive just to be done with it and just buy the freaking Plane… or the airline which might be possible at the rate at which they are sinking…
Bon voyage.