[brutus1213]

This is a naive comment. The airline industry is hardly competitive. You do realize the issue is the limits on gates. Please visit Canada and our shitty airline and telecom monopoly/oligopoly to understand how airlines can lower service, make money and pass almost nothing back to customers.

[PaulHoule]

What I can say is that if you to any other country, developed or not, the flying experience seems to be better than the US. For instance:

* not getting groped by the T.S.A.

* not having to book a flight a month in advance to get a good price

* paying less

* being treated like a human being

[brianwawok]

TSA precheck solves the first one

[mttyng]

Yeah, but it “solves” it at a monetary and privacy cost (albeit relatively small for the former).

It bothers me that we tolerate various personal possessions (in this instance privacy) being taken away and then given back, generously (/s), for a small fee. I would rather be groped and spoken down to then hand more information/money over to another poorly-managed organization.

Moreover, the Airline-Security group has always been reactive rather than proactive. I don’t see how TSA pre-check prevents anything in the first place. What’s to stop someone from deciding at some point after the Pre-Check process that they want to create havoc on a flight? Nothing. Then we’ll have Super-Pre-Check, for only $190 and this time you “only have to” give a DNA swab. Sorry for the cynicism, etc, but I doubt I’m alone in calling the whole thing a facade.

Anyway, I forgot my initial point, but there’s my rant.

[cannonedhamster]

No it doesn't. If the precheck lanes are closed you get to go through the regular line first. That's it. Add to that, there is no evidence to show that our intrusive security is any better than the former metal detectors that existed prior. Flying is needlessly impacted. It's theater as it's trivially easy to bypass most security measures in place and get weapons on board all you want. The best security measure that was implemented was locking the cockpit during flight. It's the only one that made any real improvement in security and it cost nothing.

[scottlocklin]

Not living in and avoiding visits to a surveillance dystopia also solves this problem.