Traveling with tourists

This little jaunt (where sadly I’m going to spend more times on planes than I did in the meeting I actually traveled for) reminds me why I avoid business travel in the summer: tourists. Summer is when all those people who only fly once every five years fly, and the combination of their uncertainty as to what to do and the airlines’ hostility to travelers is never pleasant. The check in line was moving extra slow this morning because of passengers who failed to realize that the self-service kiosks required self-service, and I’m pretty sure that some of the folks in the security line had never been through security (at least during the TSA’s “just do us all a favor and stop traveling” regime).

And then there’s the new airline policy of making people pay extra to check bags. The best part about it is how the airline staff seem genuinely surprised that boarding now takes extra long because everyone is trying to cram extra luggage into the overhead compartments. You didn’t have to be a genius to see that one coming.