When it involves the golden age of air journey, ‘the genie is out of the bottle’

This week, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines formally ended its long-standing open-seating model that gave passengers equal dibs on good seats, the newest in a lineup of shrinking free comforts and added charges amongst world carriers.

Over the previous yr, passengers have seen new carry-on bag charges, record-breaking numbers of labour disruptions, and world pc outages stranding passengers throughout peak journey instances.

Waiting has change into routine, with a three-hour delay four times more common than it was 30 years in the past.

And that’s earlier than even getting on the aircraft.

One Vogue columnist wrote final yr about passengers being so pained by the presence of babies on flights that folks felt strain handy out reward luggage. And then, there’s the leg-room squeeze.

To add dread to discomfort, a New York Times analysis in 2025 discovered that 91 per cent of air site visitors management services within the U.S. had been understaffed.

It’s towards this backdrop that the U.S. Transportation Secretary just lately launched the “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You” marketing campaign in an effort to revive “courtesy and class” to air journey, citing a 400-per-cent uptick in unruly – and generally violent – passenger incidents since 2019.

Are you dressing with respect? Are you maintaining management of your youngsters? Saying please and thanks? These are simply among the questions Secretary Sean Duffy desires travellers to ask themselves.

But has the golden age of journey actually disappeared, or does it merely come at a better price ticket than we’ve change into used to?

When folks speak concerning the “golden age” of journey, many hark again to the white-glove service of the Nineteen Sixties. For anybody nonetheless nostalgic for this imaginative and prescient, John Gradek, who teaches aviation administration at McGill University, has some dangerous information.

“Flying for people used to be an adventure,” he mentioned. “Today, they’re looking at it as something that they have to get through − it’s like a bus.”

And that, he mentioned, is unlikely to vary any time quickly.

For a lot of aviation’s early historical past, beginning within the Nineteen Forties, airways had been government-owned, backed and tightly regulated, Prof. Gradek mentioned.

The trade-off was that airline fares had been sky-high, even when adjusted for inflation. Flying was principally a luxurious, and folks acted accordingly.

Deregulation beginning within the Seventies within the U.S. – adopted by Canada and Europe – flipped that mannequin. Fares fell sharply however flying additionally turned much less of an event.

Airlines gained freedom to cost as they wished, piling on the ancillary charges we see nowadays, Prof. Gradek mentioned.

In Canada, restricted competitors made the squeeze worse whereas in Europe and the U.S., bigger markets allowed airways to section prospects extra successfully into ultra-low-cost carriers like Ryanair, whereas legacy airways targeted on the premium stuff.

But most of the roots of at the moment’s frustration are far more moderen.

The COVID-19 pandemic left its mark on air journey, with new guidelines and mandates exposing divisions that marked “the start of the slippery slope,” mentioned Prof. Gradek. Arguments over public-health guidelines spilled into altercations about youngsters, carry-on baggage and private area.

There was additionally a shift in how airways made cash. The pandemic revealed that many leisure travellers would pay for higher seats, and airways expanded premium choices while unbundling what used to be “coach” right into a base fare with as many add-ons as attainable.

Today, common passengers not anticipate consolation or civility on a flight, mentioned Prof. Gradek. “They expect stress, conflict and discomfort.”

Nostalgia-driven campaigns received’t carry again the so-called golden age of journey, as a result of the monetary and social realities of the trade have modified, he mentioned. “The genie is out of the bottle.”

But as air journey appears to worsen, airways are spending billions to enhance the front-of-plane expertise. And with journey for common passengers turning into more and more chaotic, extra shall be desperate to pay up.

Tell us about what you’ve encountered on a current flight. Has air journey actually worsened? Or are you paying extra to flee the chaos? Share your ideas with mpostelnyak@globeandmail.com and I’ll spherical up a few of your responses in a future e-newsletter.

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Globe reporter Sal Farooqui is seeking to communicate with renters, consumers and actual property brokers who’ve seen AI creeping into actual property adverts and listings. We’re speaking digitally added furnishings, faults hidden and lighting adjusted. Even the view out of a window could be modified. Do you may have considerations concerning the sudden development of this tech? Are there potential moral or regulatory points, and will it upend the staging trade? Reach out to Sal at sfarooqui@globeandmail.com.