A first of it’s kind study was recently performed by the Travel Industry Association. In the study, they interviewed about 1,000 air travelers who flew at least one round trip in the last 12 months. Their findings were incredible.
Almost 8 out of 10 of us believe that the air travel system is broken and needs to be corrected. We complain (and, rightfully so, I think) that the air travel system is deteriorating, that our time is not respected in the air travel process and that the federal government isn’t doing enough to help us with delays, cancellations and inefficient security screening.
That might explain why 41 million of us last year decided to avoid at least one business or leisure trip. And, that came at a huge cost to our nation’s economy - $26.5 billion. For each of us that avoided a trip, our average personal blow to the nation’s economy was about $650. How?
- The airline we were going to fly lost $226.
- The hotel we were going to stay at lost $137.
- The restaurants we were going to eat at lost $76.
- The government lost $102 in taxes.
- Everything else combined lost $109.
41 million. How do we wrap our heads around such a big number? I know …
See that plane? It’s big. It seats about 400 people. We’d need one of these planes taking off every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day to fly an additional 41 million trips each year.
I guess it comes as no surprise that the airlines are hemorrhaging money again. Yes, I know gas prices are at all time highs. But, as airlines continue to run their businesses like draconian bus lines and the federal government continues to ignore the problems of our aging air traffic infrastructure, we can only assume the problem will get worse.
