[jakobegger]

Having to throw away your water bottle at security is ridiculous.

Buying something in the duty free shop, only to have them take it away at the next airport on connecting flights.

On some flights they don't even serve drinks anymore (unless you pay). Great recipe for dehydration.

Seats are so cramped that more and more people suffer from thrombosis after flying.

There's no space for your hand luggage because the airline charges extra for checked baggage and everyone takes the biggest suitcase they are allowed to take on the plane.

Ridiculous forms you need to fill out online (hoping you don't fall for a scam website), where you can pay only by credit card (not so common in many countries), just to fly through a country that is visa free? Flying via US or Canadian airports has become a major hassle...

Flying used to be different.

I remember that on one flight you could just walk to the front, and watch the pilots fly the plane through the open cockpit door.

[tomcooks]

Unrequested advice: drink your bottle, pass security with it, refill your bottle at any fountain, bar, toilet after security.

If you're dehydrated tell a hostess, free water will be provided (costs them a lot less than being sued).

[wil421]

I just empty my water bottle before the security line. Take the top off when it goes through the X-ray and fill it up after.

[secfirstmd]

Yes that's my flying hack

[lazerwalker]

> On some flights they don't even serve drinks anymore (unless you pay). Great recipe for dehydration.

Flights that don't serve free drinks tend to be (at least in my experience) SUPER cheap budget airlines. In the bygone age of luxurious leisurely air travel, you weren't flying from San Francisco to San Diego for $50 or from Paris to Barcelona for 30€.

[oblio]

> Flying used to be different.

Yeah, it was. Expensive.

[dredmorbius]

Not in the period under consideration, and a generally overstated case regardless.

Robert Gorden in The Rise and Fall of American Growth:

surprisingly, the period of most rapid decline in the real price of air travel occurred before the first flight of a jet plane. As shown in figure 11–10, the price of air travel relative to other goods and services declined rapidly from 1940 to 1960, declined at a slower rate from 1960 to 1980, and has experienced no decline at all in its relative price between 1980 and 2014. The growth rate of passenger miles traveled has mirrored the rate of change of the relative price except with the opposite sign, because lower prices stimulate the demand for any good or service.

[masonic]

In total, perhaps. But deregulation had a huge effect on the cost of major long-haul routes with multiple competing airlines (e.g. LAX-JFK).

[yesforwhat]

and inaccessible to the majority of people

[bena]

> I remember that on one flight you could just walk to the front, and watch the pilots fly the plane through the open cockpit door.

And sadly, that's the only change that matters. Cockpits are now closed and locked.

[masonic]

  I remember that on one flight you could just walk to the front, and watch the pilots fly the plane through the open cockpit door

That changed in the USA even before 2001, at least by typical policy if not statute.

I recall a trip in the late 1990s flying Aur Canada (maybe YYZ-SFO) and while in Canadian airspace, I was invited in right behind the copilot to hang out for 20 minutes or so. I was surprised how much air traffic could be seen just with the naked eye.