My pretzel bag explodes at 35,000 feet, scattering salt across my cramped tray table. The passenger in front repeatedly slams their seat back, each time crushing my laptop screen. The stench of someone's fucking tuna sandwich fills the air of the cabin. A baby screams, not mine in this case. The flight attendant's smile is very poorly rehearsed. Modern air travel excels at manufacturing human misery.

Through the fingerprint smudged window, I spot another plane's blinking lights against the darkness. Some poor idiot over there probably fighting for armrest territory too. We've all become willing participants in aviation's speedy race to the bottom.

The Golden Age

The year 1965 marked the pinnacle of aviation elegance. Pan Am's Boeing 707s embodied luxury. Passengers boarded dressed in their finest attire, men in suits, women in dresses and heels, children scrubbed clean and polished like Sunday church, but the church of progress. Flight attendants carved chateaubriand directly at your seat. Flying felt like that William Eggleston photo of a cocktail in an airplane. The waiting rooms rivaled five-star hotels, with bars serving elaborate cocktails you would then enjoy in an Eero Saarinen designed lounge, and the mere suggestion of charging for checked bags would have gotten you fired from your job at Pan Am or TWA faster than Liz Truss.

The numbers will do a better job at telling the story of our descent into sardine aviation. In 1965, standard domestic flights provided 90cm (35in) of seat pitch, the distance between seats. Modern carriers press passengers into 79cm (31in), while budget airlines squeeze that down to a preposterous 71cm (28in).

As for the economics, a 1965 round-trip ticket between New York and London cost approximately $500, close to $4,500 in today's money. And that included full service, generous baggage allowance, meals, and perhaps most importantly, some basic fucking dignity. Airlines competed on service quality, not price gauging. Pan Am trained their flight attendants for six weeks in proper etiquette, wine service, and emergency procedures. Today's crews get about three weeks of training, focused primarily on safety and dealing with crazy passengers.

The Deregulation Revolution

The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act in the US, unleashed the market forces on air travel, as subtlety as a nuke. Before deregulation, airlines operated under strict federal control. The Civil Aeronautics Board set routes, regulated fares, and maintained industry standards. Airlines couldn't simply slash services to cut costs, they had to compete through superior offerings.

Deregulation changed everything. Suddenly, carriers could fly wherever they wanted and charge whatever the market would bear. New budget airlines emerged, offering bare-bones service at rock-bottom prices. Established carriers scrambled to compete, discovering they could strip away every conceivable amenity while still filling planes. Passengers demonstrated infinite tolerance for discomfort when presented with cheap fares, and the industry's death spiral of service began.

Since deregulation, over 100 airlines have filed for bankruptcy. The survivors consolidated into today's giant carriers, creating an oligopoly that somehow manages to combine the worst aspects of both monopolies control and cutthroat competition.

Modern airlines have turned supplementary charges into mile-high fleecing. Seat selection? Checked bags? Hunger? Prepare to pay more for a sad sandwich and a tiny Checked bag than the actual ticket. U.S. carriers raked in over $5.8 billion from baggage fees alone in 2019. The nickel-and-diming strategy has proven phenomenally profitable.

9/11: The Day Everything Changed

Then came 9/11. Beyond the serious and immense human tragedy, the attacks fundamentally altered air travel. Security became the industry's new top priority. Off came the shoes. Out came the laptops. Three ounce liquid restrictions turned airport security into a game of volumetric compliance.

Advanced imaging technology strips us bare without consent. Biometric scanning creeps into more airports. PreCheck and Clear offer to save us from the hassle, for a price, naturally. We've normalized removing half our clothes in public and submitting to pat-downs that would make Jeffrey Epstein swoon.

Flying transformed from a fun adventure into a nuisance. Passengers these days arrive hours early, shuffling through security like Salvadorian prisoners. Gate areas overflow with anxious travelers who think they’ll arrive faster if they board first. There’s a special place in hell for whoever came up with the shoe bomb, and the perfume Biochemical weapon.

Post-9/11 regulations devastated airline finances too. Enhanced security measures cost billions. Insurance premiums skyrocketed. New staff training requirements piled on expenses. Airlines responded by squeezing more seats into planes and cutting service further. The spiral continued downward, taking our hard earned cash with it.

The Human Cost of Cheap Travel

The true cost of democratized air travel extends far beyond ticket prices. Environmental impact soars ever higher as more planes crowd the skies. A single long-haul flight generates more CO2 than many people produce in a year, or Taylor Swift in one minute. Airport infrastructure is crushed under increasing passenger volumes, just look at the perpetual construction at LaGuardia, a monument to planning incompetence.

Flight attendants now spend their time mediating passenger disputes and enforcing basic civility rather than providing good service. Pilots face ruthless scheduling demands that push the limits of safety regulations. Ground crew handle endless frustrations with diminishing resources while their benefits get slashed in each new contract negotiation. Mexico City even has an encampment of wronged employees by Mexicana de Aviation, which went under a couple of years ago.

Passenger behavior deteriorated together with service quality. Air rage incidents commonplace. Viral videos of midair meltdowns became a genre unto themselves. The pandemic only accelerated this descent into barbarism. Covid mask compliance battles turned cabins into ideological battlegrounds. The friendly skies are now hostile.

The Cargo Cult of Premium Service

Some carriers attempt to recreate golden age glamour through premium lounges and upgraded meals. These superficial fixes miss the fundamental problem. Modern air travel lacks basic respect, for the journey, the staff, and the passengers. Airlines treat travelers like cargo while expecting them to maintain the decorum of first-class passengers from 1965.

Contemporary first-class cabins exist in their own stratosphere, priced beyond reason. International first class can cost more than a god damn car, especially on Asian and Middle eastern airlines. Much like in the world today, the middle class vanished. Once it balanced comfort with affordability. Now passengers choose between cattle-car conditions or a full on luxury flat, with private showers even. Business class emerged as a compromise but increasingly prices itself into the same ridiculous territory as first class.

The Technology Paradox

A don’t even get me started on tech. It promised to smooth air travel's rough edges. Mobile boarding passes. Online check-in. Real-time baggage tracking. Yet somehow the experience feels more dehumanizing than ever. Automated systems replace human interaction. Chatbots field customer service requests. Airlines tout these changes as improvements while actually reducing points of human contact where problems might be solved with common sense rather than algorithmic decision trees.

Even booking flights becomes an exercise in technological frustration. Airline websites deploy sophisticated pricing algorithms that make quantum physics look easy. Fares change by the minute. Basic economy fares trap clueless buyers with restrictions. Comparison shopping has now become an science.

Speed: The Broken Promise

Here's the most stupid part of aviation's downward spiral: we've actually gotten slower. The same New York to London route that Pan Am's 707s crossed in the 1960s takes about the same time today. Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s might boast better fuel efficiency and longer range, but they cruise at virtually identical speeds. We've traded everything for cost savings, and we can't even get there faster.

For a brief, glorious moment, supersonic travel existed. The Concorde streaked across the Atlantic like a fucking rocket, getting you there in three and a half hours, traveling at twice the speed of sound. But even this technological marvel fell victim to aviation's cost-cutting obsession. When Air France and British Airways retired their Concorde fleets in 2003, we officially entered an era of regression. For the first time in human history, we actually got slower at traveling long distances.

But maybe, just maybe, a glimmer of hope exists on the horizon. Companies like Boom Supersonic promise to resurrect faster-than-sound travel for the masses - well, the masses who can afford it. Their Overture aircraft aims to fly at Mach 1.7, carrying passengers from New York to London in three and a half hours. United Airlines already placed orders. American Airlines followed suit.

Unlike the gas-guzzling Concorde, these new supersonic ventures claim to prioritize sustainability, promising net-zero carbon emissions through sustainable aviation fuels. The tickets are aimed to  cost about the same as current business class, roughly $5,000 , yes, expensive, but not quite the astronomical prices of Concorde, which cost almost $10,000 in today’s money.

Other companies explore different approaches. Virgin Galactic played with the idea of using sub-orbital space flight for ultra-long-haul routes, potentially crossing the Pacific in a couple of hours. Electric aircraft startups promise short-haul flights without the carbon guilt. Hypersonic research continues in various corners of the aerospace industry.But we've heard promises before. The aviation industry excels at selling dreams, but ultimately disappoints.

From my middle seat, fighting for my dignity with a lady in the section in front of me, who throws the dividing curtain in my face, and I back into hers, the golden age of flight feels very distant. The drink cart approaches, with ever smaller plastic cups and “snacks”, it’s in these moments that I wish I had a peanut allergy. But let’s cheer, with my stupid tiny cup. Here’s to hoping all this will change soon. Until then, this journey only goes one direction: down.