Small plane air travel will become the new normal. Electric aeroplanes part 4.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I really don't like flying. I'll always choose another option if possible. Sure its really terrible for the environment, but on a personal level, its humiliating, degrading, tiring, stressful, time consuming and thoroughly unenjoyable.

Lets take a minute to figure out why.

1. Getting to the airport
   Most flights are from mid-large size airports that are usually not close to where you live. Due to their size they are unlikely to be in or very close to any cities or towns. The good ones have good rail links but often that's not even the case so you may end up driving or catching a coach (bus). Neither are particularly relaxing, driving for (sometimes many) hours to get to the airport, having to book and pay for long term parking - frequently requiring handing over your keys for strangers to park your car. Then having to get a transfer bus with all your luggage. Its a huge hassle. In all time consuming and expensive.
   
   
2. Airports and security.
   Most airlines ask you to arrive up to 3 hours before your flight. When you arrive you will then have to navigate what could be a gigantic facility to find the correct place to check in. Likely you will have to stand in a queue possibly for hours without any seating. Your luggage allowance is likely very small and the carry-on allowance will be tiny (and hope they haven't changed the rules, my friend just had to check-in (at significant cost) her carry-on luggage due to size. The same luggage she's been using with that airline for years). You have to separate your luggage depending on what it is into checked-in vs carry-on depending on a bunch of rules you have to research in advance. Then you say goodbye to most of your luggage as its whisked off behind a screen to hopefully be reunited later.
   
   Then the real humiliation starts, security. You probably have to queue again just to find yourself disrobing, removing belts, shoes, anything with a buckle, your coat, watches, wallets, anything electronic. It all has to go into a little grey tray whilst you stand there holding your trousers up, stood in your socks so you can walk through the super strong magnet that would destroy your phone/watch if you'd left it on. Oh and forget bringing something to drink with you, that's not allowed, nor are tweezers or nail clippers or anything remotely sharp or pointy, too bad if you have any of those things, they have to go in the bin. Anyway after all that you find the alarm goes off anyway and then you get subjected to a pat down or worse (cameras that literally can see through your clothing). Finally you stand waiting for your stuff to arrive on the other side and hope to god there was nothing there that looked suspicious in which case you will get carted off to a little room and have to open your items so that the person can look at them directly. (And I'm not qualified to talk about the experience for minorities which I'm lead to believe is usually worse).
   
   Finally, after security you get the privilege of walking through an overpriced advert for Calvin Klein. Does anyone ever buy anything from that first store? The one you're forced to walk through to get to your departure gate? Does anyone enjoy being accosted by the ladies with the perfume? I guess some people do as those stores pay a lot of money to be there forcing you through them. In any case, after a brief respite to enjoy some overpriced beer at the 'past security' bar, you're finally on your way to the departure gate for...
   
   More queuing. At least, once you've found your departure gate. (In the larger airports the departure gates can be a 20 minute walk from the security section, and even if its not that far its pretty stressful trying to work out where you're supposed to be going, at least in the larger airports). If you're lucky there are seats, (probably not enough) but often none, so there you are, standing queuing again to finally board the plane. You probably have some hand luggage but the person wants to see your boarding card and passport again for some reason so you have to juggle everything to have those ready to show.
   
   
3. The flight.
   Getting off and on the plane is a lesson in patience. In a typical short haul plane like the 737 there might be about 160 people all trying to get on. Most if not all will have some kind of hand luggage to stow above or below their seats and the aisle ways are very small. CGP Grey made an excellent video discussing plane on-boarding/egressing here that you should definitely watch.  In short it takes ages and its pretty stressful as likely it feels like a disco or sardines in a can and everyone is probably a bit grumpy. Finally finally you get to sit down in your seat ready for the flight.
   But... planes tend to be cramped, the seats don't adjust much, the food is always inedible. Your hand luggage is probably above your head or under your seat so accessing your own food/drink (that you had to buy post security from the overpriced store)/books/whatever is an ordeal.
   Plus if you're unlucky there's one or more overly loud person(s), off to enjoy their holiday/stag do/ etc, or maybe just an annoying kid sat behind you kicking your chair. I've even heard of women having creepy guys (in front or) behind them touching their hair or worse.
   
   When I started writing this Covid wasn't a thing... So there's that now too.
   
   
4. The other side...
   Finally the flight has landed, you get to enjoy the hustle and bustle of trying to get off the plane, which is the same as getting on in reverse. Grumpy passengers, trying to get their overhead luggage. Feigning some courtesy to let people off before them but really just wishing the nightmare would end. Standing, waiting, finally disembarking the plane, queuing again through more security, until finally finally you get to stand and queue once again possibly for hours (yes I've had this last over an hour) whilst you wait for your checked-in luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt thingy (if it even does, sometimes the luggage gets lost or sent to the wrong place). Again, good luck finding a seat, or even the right conveyor belt at times. If your luggage even arrives and when it does it might be broken or damaged as the handling guys dropped/threw/crushed it at some point.  Now all you have to do is make your way from wherever this airport is to wherever it was you actually wanted to go... Which is probably not very close, often hours from where you actually want to be.

Example journey

So, for example, if I wanted to travel to the beautiful village of Ronda Spain (seriously go there its amazing), from my home in Swindon England (don't go there its not amazing), I might choose to catch the Easyjet flight from Bristol to Malaga (the closest international airports) . The flight itself is about 2 hours and 40 minutes and departs at 3pm. I need to arrive 3 hours in advance so I plan to arrive at midday. Its a 1 hour drive without traffic, but I don't want to be late so plan 1.5 hours. Plus I have to sort out the parking and get the shuttle bus, that's probably at least 30 minutes so I leave the house at 10am. Or I could try to use public transport (a train and then a bus). That will probably take about 2 hours door to door assuming it leaves exactly when I need it to meaning I have to leave around 9am. 

The plane lands at 5.40pm. By the time I've collected my bags from the thing its at least 6pm. Now I have to get to Ronda, I could drive if I had a car, its about 1hr 20 mins by road although I have to now deal with the car hire company which from experience can take up to an hour and probably a lot more queuing. (Don't get my started on car hire companies), or I could probably do it in about 2.5 hours by public transport, if they are running at the right times.

This is all assuming that the flight isn't delayed or cancelled. Don't get me started on that.

All in all I can expect to arrive at my hotel no earlier than 8pm, but probably later. My total travel time from door to door is about 10 hours and I'm completely exhausted. 2hrs 40 in the air, the rest driving, queuing, waiting, being assaulted by security etc.

This is not a good experience.

Problem breakdown

Most if not all of the negative issues from the above descriptions can be traced back to the fundamental problem with today's air travel: 

Planes are big, and they carry a lot of people. 

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but the starting point has to be that pilots are expensive.

To minimise the number of pilots needed, you need to carry a lot of people. A lot of people means a big plane. A big plane means a big airport and a big runway. A big airport (and big planes) means not close to where people live. Lots of people means lots of security. I honestly don't know why planes have the luggage separated into 2 parts, its probably historical, there might be security or practicality reasons, but in any case, separated luggage means big luggage handling infrastructure which means bigger airport. Big airport with lots of people sitting waiting means big opportunity to sell shit to captive crowd and facilities for selling food. Shops and restaurants means bigger airport. Big airport and big infrastructure means lots of handling staff. Lots of staff means more expensive seats, or more likely, (or both), more hard up-selling of crap.

So lets unwind. What if we didn't need a pilot and could make autonomous planes that were much smaller? What if the interior of the plane was barely bigger than your car? A whole plane just for you and your travelling companions and your luggage. What if the plane could take off and land vertically and was quiet enough that it wouldn't disturb neighbours that were a hundred meters or more away?

We can do away with the huge airport, we don't need big security. (This will vary by country, but typically vehicles with less than 15 or so passengers have much reduced security requirements usually only immigration and passport control). We can place the 'airports' (air taxi ranks?) all over the place, nearby to where people live. A short bus ride for the villages, maybe even walking distance in the cities.

With such small vehicles we move from a scheduled approach, to an on-demand approach. With no pilot and the fuel being insanely cheap (compared to jet fuel) the tickets are significantly cheaper than the Easyjet flight. When we want to go somewhere, we click on our app and book the next free vehicle. 

Given something like this, my example journey would change to:

Potential future journey example

I book the next flight from my local air taxi app and it tells me there is one free in an hour. Its about a 15 minute bus ride and I'm ready to go so I head out. The bus is late but we still arrive 30 minutes early. There's a coffee machine in the rank and a guy who looks a bit bored, but not much else. Someone is checking the craft is ok and clean and we get to board a little later than expected because the last person had too much to drink the night before. The only security is a passport scanner and fingerprint reader we have to do just before we board the craft. We have to weigh ourselves and our luggage as the vehicle has a maximum gross carrying capacity but even with several suitcases we are well under.

We load our own luggage into the vehicle, I glance at the bored looking guy wondering if he's supposed to help but he looks back with an expression that lets me know I'm going to do it myself. Still its about as difficult as loading into a car or taxi so I don't complain.

We get in, our destination is already programmed and the computer waits for us to buckle in before it closes the door.

The craft takes off and I check my app to find out what time we will arrive and check our progress. Its 1700 km direct to Ronda, but its going to take a dogleg to stay in its designated traffic lanes so the entire journey will probably be about 2000km. The app tells me the vehicle is going to stop twice for new batteries and I realise this is one of the older models. The newer ones would do it with only one stop or even no stops, especially the new supersonic models. It doesn't bother me particularly, each leg of the journey wont take long as this model has a top speed of 1000km/h. Although slowing down for the landings and battery swaps will slow us down a bit we will still do the entire journey in about 3 hours. Besides, I quite like the chance to get out and stretch my legs and use the loo at the mid-points. There's a croissant and crepe place at the second one and I'm getting a bit peckish.

Finally the plane lands at the destination, just 10 minutes taxi ride from our hotel in Ronda.

Total journey time about 4 hours. I arrive relaxed, a little seat sore, but ready to enjoy my holiday.

If the above sounds like science fiction, then read on... to my next blog (TBC)