Oh crap

I finally got my passport back on Friday from the Japanese Consulate in New York with my new working visa plastered in and I’m finally ready to book a flight over, and the New York Times has to go and run THIS story!

Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel.

Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II, when the airlines helped transport troops. Fares are rising. Service frills are disappearing.

Logjams at airport security checkpoints loom as the federal government strains to keep screener jobs filled. The usual violent summer storms are expected to send the air traffic control system into chaos at times, with flight delays and cancellations cascading across the country.

5 thoughts on “Oh crap”

  1. It couldn’t be as bad as one flight I took. I got stuck in DFW for 3 days, trying to fly standby to NRT. And that was in the good old days, in 1996. I finally had to buy a full-fare 1 way ticket, ouch!

  2. I’ve been on a couple of JAL flights to/from Tokyo in the last couple of months and I have to say that they weren’t all that bad. I flew mid-week and the planes weren’t even full, so there was plenty of room to stretch out during the flight. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as the NYT article predicts!

  3. In addition to the reasons you listed, a lot of the legacy airlines are actually cutting frequencies this summer on domestic flights to boost their loads. It makes sense to do this, since empty seats are just a waste of money…

  4. Solution – take Korean Air. They seem to be completely unaffected by the woes of the US carriers.

  5. Honestly, I don’t expect it to be any trouble. Most of the problems discussed in the article seem to be largely affecting domestic flights, but there should still be plenty of trans-Pacific flights from the Asian carriers. Also Golden Week recently passes in Japan but I’ll still be traveling well before the summer vacation season so the rates and seating probably won’t be very bad.

Comments are closed.