Opinion: Is the airplane era ending?

When passenger airplanes were still something of a novelty, people dressed up for their flight. Airline personnel were pleasant and helpful, and there was no charge for luggage. If you had your boarding pass, you just needed to get to the airport sometime before scheduled take-off. On long flights, meals were served. Aisles were wide, and seats were comfortable with plenty of leg room.

As flying became commonplace, people started getting sloppy, and so did the employees who made the planes. Now, you have to get to the airport at least two hours before scheduled take-off, go through a line where you put your shoes, watch, and other personal items in a plastic crate, and get screened — and possibly searched — by a TSA employee. 

Then comes the tense hours of waiting to see if your flight has been delayed or cancelled because there is a computer problem somewhere in the world. But once you’re lucky enough to get seated, you have plenty of time to pray that nothing prevents a safe take-off and nothing falls off the plane while you’re in flight. Unless you’re on a journey of more than a few hundred miles, it probably would have been faster and less nerve wracking to drive.