Back on Terra Firma

So, the switch to London City worked.  There were a couple of nasty moments at CPH where they removed the gate and let us sweat a bit.  Anyway, a fun flight on a slightly bouncy Dash-8 where I had a great view of the undercarriage.

Yesterday, the ongoing consequences, do give me pause for thought about flying.  As regulars know I fly about 150,000 miles a year on business - mostly transatlantic.  I also fly a fair amount inside the US, as well as Europe and Asia.  Where I can, I take as much as I can on the plane with me.  I've got to the point where I can do a 10 day trip with a laptop bag and a carry on.  Those days may be over, and it's going to make life hard for me, and for the airlines.

Over the last few years, pretty much all the airlines, especially the low cost ones, have tried to move people to carry on bags only and get away from having too much in the hold.  There are a lot of potential delays with hold luggage, so being able to minimise the baggage handling on a flight can make a big difference. 

For the time being those days are over.  How long this lasts is an interesting question - and I wonder if it will finally force a change in travel habits.  I get a lot of work done on planes, our company policy is to not allow company laptops travel in the hold of aircraft.  Letting laptops, iPods and other stuff go in holds with confidential commercial documents is going to tax risk management teams around the world.

At the end of the day, this probably means that we have to start being even more serious about airtravel and that will mean more profiling of passengers, regardless of how racist it looks, and, I suspect, some form of "approved" traveller programme where frequent travellers have to go through security and background checks in order to get through security faster and travel with their stuff.