DEREGULATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION
Updated: Jun 30
I’ve only taken the train in Canada and the US a few times. Each time I’ve been struck by how — on what are considered some of the worst transportation systems in the developed world with terribly slow, outdated, and limited service with no luxuries available — taking the train is so preferable to flying. If there wasn’t such a stark contrast in the travel times, speed, and routes I don’t know why anyone would fly. One mode is relaxed and civilized and the other just abounds with points of urgency, friction, and turbulence. I don’t think you need to take many train trips to feel like there should be a real push to revisit, as best we can, something approximating the train travel scenario on this continent a century ago, with but expanded destinations and modernized engines and cars. But, alas, I concede we probably need another two billion people on this continent to have the population density to justify such things. I get it.
Still, anyone older than about 40 and who flew in the '80s or '90s and has done so in recent decades has likely noticed how unpleasant plane travel has become. There’s a lot to be unhappy about. Maybe you’ve noticed the wacky post-9/11 security barriers (when we used to greet and see off our friends and family from the gate), the increasingly involved screening song-n-dance (that still lets through folks with multiple 12-inch steel blades on their person, even after a full-body scan, while confiscating your nail file or clippers), and related biometrics collections (“What, body scan, retina scan and finger prints? Sure, why not? Can I pee in a cup, too?”); the twice daily terminal tantrums (with yahoos in their pajamas starting screaming matches or punching and kicking people, throwing chairs, taking hammers to screens, or otherwise destroying whole kiosks and departure gates because they missed their flight); or maybe you just don't like the total absence of customer service and in-flight options or the ever-shrinking legroom.
Though I wasn’t around to see it, I regularly hear of flying’s Golden Age. I’m told the status quo from the 1930s through to the late 1970s, back when the US government strictly controlled commercial aviation, saw every passenger dressed in business attire at least, with upper or lower decks home to piano lounges and servings of lobster and caviar and with half the passengers smoking cigars or cigarettes at the bar with their gin martinis, and when each seat was spaced to accommodate an average-sized body. Though I’ve seen the pictures I still can’t really imagine it.
You see, at that time air travel was deemed a public utility. As such, in the US the Civil Aeronautics Board ran the show, operating effectively as a cartel by strictly dictating prices, airline routes, and who could fly between which cities, as well as controlling what airlines could operate. Within this context the only thing the airline companies could do to entice customers was to offer a more luxurious experience than their competition. So that they did.
