Air travel may be grim but at least it's cheap

Air travel long ago stopped being an exciting adventure for most of us.

Unless you consider excitement partially disrobing at security, trying to find clear space in the overhead bin for your carry-on bag, then squeezing into a narrow seat to await the dubious delights of extra-cost sandwich or instant ramen noodles.

Soon to be added to the list of frustrations, a $25 fee for your first checked piece of luggage. WestJet plans to start charging the fee on Oct. 29, with Air Canada following suit Nov. 2, CBC News reports.

It’s become cliché in the last few years for older travellers to wax nostalgia about those halcyon days when flying meant dressing up in your best clothes, stretching out in a spacious seat and dining – yes, dining – on china plates with real cutlery.

The perspective is no doubt tinted a little, but there’s no doubt flying in a post 9/11 world with airlines battling to deliver lower-cost travel is a grimmer experience than it used to be, unless you upgrade to business class.

“I think there’s ample, ample evidence that flying as a passenger today is far more stressful than it was,” Dr. R.B. Rayman, an American specialist in aerospace medicine, tells Yahoo Canada News.

From navigating large airports, with their long walks to gates, invasive security screening, confusing and sometimes outdated flight-information boards, to cramming onto increasingly full flights with dodgy air quality and indifferent food, air travel seems more like penance than pleasure.

Throw in some unforeseen factor, such as a schedule-crippling snowstorm or last week’s fire that knocked out Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, a major international hub, and the stress hits critical.

“All this is stress that we all know is fatiguing,” Rayman, a former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon who went on to work in the space program and has published scholarly work in his field, said.

But that hasn’t stopped us from flying. Statistics Canada figures for 2012 show passenger traffic at Canadian airports rose by 4.8 per cent over the previous year, with 119 million people getting on and off commercial flights. It was the third straight annual increase since 2009, when the global financial meltdown curtailed travel.

Cheaper flights have encouraged more people to travel by air, even if they may rant about the experience afterwards.

Canadian Transportation Agency numbers suggest customer complaints it handles have climbed in the last five years, though they’re still relatively few compared to the number of air travellers each year.

Some go further: Witness the apparent rise in incidents of disruptive passengers aboard aircrafts that sometimes cause flights to be diverted, with fighter escort no less.

[ Related: Booze-fuelled fracas forces Cuba-bound flight to turn back; two women charged ]

It’s possible, Rayman said, that such cases weren’t made public in an era before video-equipped smartphones.

“But to me the real explanation is the stresses that are now being imposed on passengers,” he said. “I think that is the main reason why you’re seeing behavioural problems in flight and that sort of thing has received a lot of attention in the media recently.”

We are, in part, responsible for this situation because we’ve embraced the low-cost, no-frills model that’s flourished in the airline industry for the last couple of decades.

Carriers such as Southwest in the U.S. and Ryanair in Europe discovered people were willing to forego things such as meals and a free newspaper in exchange for a cheaper ticket.

“The passenger perceives there is a reasonable tradeoff to be made here if you can get a much lower fare and give up some benefits that really you don’t value that highly in the first place,” transportation economics professor William Morrison, director of the Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis at Wilfrid Laurier University, told Yahoo Canada News.

“The two things that people tend to value highly, particularly when it comes to shorter or medium-haul travel on relatively shorter distances, is safety, obviously, and punctuality.”

The successful and profitable business model forced old-line carriers such as Air Canada to respond, creating Jazz as a budget alternative. Morrison said it’s been harder for them, however, because the public still perceives them as full-service airlines.

Carriers like WestJet have also found it easier to deliver good service because initially they weren’t wedded to the hub-and-spoke system of connecting flights, which raises the risk of delays and disruption. Morrison said low-cost airlines fly mostly from one city to another and back, making it easier to maintain schedules.

The overall result has been an explosion in air travel since the 1980s and airlines that can survive have done well.

“For the airlines who think they have very low cost structure, this is to their advantage,” Morrison said.

“They would like us to think of air travel just like a bus. They want to commoditize it because when you commoditize something people just choose on the basis of price.”

That hasn’t stopped them from finding new ways to boost profits by further “de-bundling” services that were once included in the price of a ticket. Hence the decision to ding you for an in-flight meal, charge you extra to select your preferred seat and levy potentially lucrative baggage fees.

[ Related: Air Canada begins Toronto crackdown on carry-on bags ahead of new fees ]

But if you’re grousing about that, consider what’s happening in Europe.

“If you show up for a Ryanair flight in Europe and you didn’t print out your own boarding pass they will charge you about $10 to print up a boarding pass for you,” Morrison said.

It also charges for checked luggage and more if you’re forced to check oversized carry-on at the gate. There’s a per-passenger “convenience fee” for booking your own ticket online and another for using a credit card to do it.

Even with the added fees (not to mention various taxes and airport-improvement charges), most air travel costs no more than it did in the past when adjusted for inflation.

The difference is much of the work has been downloaded to you. You, not a travel agent, have to browse the web to find a good deal. You have to book your flight online. You have to get your boarding pass and you have to hump as big a suitcase as you legally can onto the plane if you want to avoid the cost and risk of checking your luggage.

While modern air travel is stressful, Rayman said people seem able to adapt.

“Most people in good shape, good health, generally get through this none the worse,” Rayman said.

Morrison said technology has brought some improvements. Even seats in steerage come with headrest-mounted on-demand video instead of the poor-quality in-flight movies once projected on distant bulkhead screens. The latest generation of jets are also quieter, as anyone who has flown on a propeller-driven airliner or early jet can attest – and offer more comfortable, albeit cramped seats.

Rayman said most of the wistful yearning for air travel’s supposed golden age comes from an older generation anyway.

“But if you’re a young person, like my kids … they don’t know what it used to be like and they’re fine with it,” he said.

The future doesn’t bode well for more relaxed flying, either. The world’s emerging economies are just beginning to develop their middle classes.

“Those people have yet to start traveling by air but as their income grows, they will,” Morrison said.

“If you draw a trend line with GDP per capita … and track it over time with air travel, they track pretty well. As long as GDP per capita keeps growing I think air travel’s going to grow along with it.”