Air travel frustration spikes with fees, security

Feeling nickel-and-dimed, frisked and scanned, crowded and hustled just to get from point A to point B, air travelers seem to be reaching new levels of frustration and unhappiness.

Already on edge after the failed Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253, they’re dealing with ever-changing security measures that the Department of Homeland Security says have been designed to be “unpredictable.”

But wait, there’s more.

Travelers who would rather check their luggage than fight for space in the overhead carry-on bins now have to pay even more if they fly on Delta Air Lines, Continental, United, US Airways or American Airlines, all of which have raised their checked luggage fees since the beginning of the year.

Add weather delays, cramped cabins and grumpy personnel to the mix and the misery grows.

“It’s just ridiculous at this point,” said Victoria Tucker, a consultant who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and who flies every week on business to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

“I do this 52 weeks a year and sometimes you’re at wits’ end.”

Tucker dreads booking her flights for the month ahead, she said, because she automatically thinks about the four Mondays she’ll have to spend hurrying through airports to get to her destination and the four Thursdays when she’ll have to do the same thing as she returns home.

Tucker, 32, also dreads the eight trips through security she’ll have to make during that month, especially if there are leisure travelers ahead of her in line who may not know the latest rules and slow the process down.

“For people who don’t travel as much as me, I can’t imagine how tricky this can get for them,” Tucker said.

‘Shoe carnival’

The changing rules at security often cause the most aggravation for experienced travelers. Evan Falchuk, the president of a company in Boston, Massachusetts, who flies on business about once a week, said it’s a pain to go through the process.

“It’s frustrating because it’s hard to tell, as a law-abiding citizen who doesn’t mean to do anything bad, exactly what’s going on and what they’re really looking for,” Falchuk said.

One of his pet peeves is people who try to put their shoes inside a bin rather than on the conveyor belt during screening, which wastes bins, uses up space and makes the whole line move more slowly, Falchuk, 40, said. (The Transportation Security Administration last year began asking that passengers put their shoes directly on the X-ray belt.)

Gary Leff, another frequent flier who lives in Arlington, Virginia, called this part of the security process the “shoe carnival.” For him, the vast amounts of time spent waiting are the biggest hassle of flying.

“The thing that’s most frustrating is that it’s unclear what you have to deal with,” said Leff, who recently flew back to the United States from the Caribbean and showed up three hours early for his flight for fear that the security lines would be overwhelming.