This year I will have flown around 40,000 miles on commercial airlines. Nearly 3/4 of those miles were on American, I fact I began to truly regret as what was an already terribly mediocre company began to buckle under the weight of the pandemic.
I passed through 50 airports, 26 security security checks, seven customs and immigration screenings, and—knock on wood—did not have any lost or delayed luggage.
Commercial airline travel has become something to be endured unfortunately, not enjoyed. It is an unrelenting gauntlet, a thousand opportunities to become stranded, lost, delayed, humiliated, offended, and/or relentlessly put upon by the least competent, least caring individuals who by some cruel stroke of luck have landed an airport job that imbues them with far more power and authority than what either their intellect or demeanor would otherwise ever afford.