Lots of airlines also made cuts to save money, exacerbating existing personnel shortages. At the peak of the pandemic, when relatively few people were flying, a bunch of airlines offered pilots buyouts and early retirement, which many took. The scale of collapse is spectacular to behold, a multilayered calamity that mostly comes down to staffing issues. Heathrow ? /ZrGqfqtsYi- MΛRC VIDΛL July 22, 2022 SgBpwMpQnH- Christian Mitchell July 14, 2022 Heathrow have invented a new game where you have to climb over loads of luggage in order find your own. Behold the checked-bag purgatory at Heathrow, for example: If you have not been personally victimized by an airport these past few months, I’m betting you know someone who has been, or that you have at least seen the fallout online. In May, domestic airfare was projected to cost about 50 percent more than it did last summer, and 25 percent more than it did in 2019 - not least because of the added fees that crop up everywhere you turn. Anyone who’s flying this summer should be prepared to spend not only an incredible amount of money but also an incredible amount of time. (via een bevriend taxichauffeur) /7Ww9wTobOj- Ro Krauss July 18, 2022Įven as ticket prices climb, air travel appears to be rebounding toward pre-pandemic rates. Feast your eyes on the queue unfurling outside the airport last week:įijn hoor, zo'n zonvakantie met het vliegtuig! In a Los Angeles Times article entitled “Perfect storm of problems leads to European airport travel chaos,” one passenger recalled arriving at Schiphol four and a half hours early for her flight to Athens to find the security line coiled through the entire terminal and spilling out the door and under an ersatz tent. Checked luggage is arriving late or, often, not at all. Around the world, delays and cancellations are rolling in at record numbers. In recent weeks, Schiphol has emerged as a locus of pandemonium and a key player in the commercial flight crisis.
Did I want to purchase insurance ($100-plus) to guard myself against freak cancellations? I did not. I settled on a return flight through Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, a one-hour layover that I thought allowed me ample time to change planes. I could roll the dice and let the airline choose my economy seat, or pay $75 to request a seat assignment in a regular, non-exit row. Has it always been this way? I could pay to check a bag, or I could pay to carry one into the main cabin. I also felt agitated and overwhelmed, looking at all the bonus crap the airline wanted me to buy.
I haven’t left the country in five years, and given that COVID restrictions have eased and millions of other people are doing it, why not get out of my inferno of an apartment? Why not go somewhere I have never been, where it is also hot but very beautiful and where my partner will be? Why not go to Greece?īooking the tickets, I felt excited at the prospect of spending two weeks swimming in the Aegean. Like so many other chumps, I recently decided that now feels like a reasonable time to take an international trip.