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Air travel (particularly within the U.S.) has been a traveler's nightmare
for decades. Unlike those photos from the '50s where airports looked like visions of the future and everyone on the plane was dressed to the nines
and flying in luxury, modern air travel, including the airports, often
leaves much to be desired. In the words of the wonderful Douglas Adams:

'It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever
produced the expression 'as pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly. Some
are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the
result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full
of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their
luggage has landed in Murmansk ... and the architects have on the whole
tried to reflect this in their designs.

They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with
brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business
of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to
confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows,
distant tie racks, or the current position of Ursa Minor in the night sky,
and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on
the grounds that they are not.'

Sigh ... we miss Douglas Adams.

But even through the end of the 20th century, air travel was still
tolerable and efficient. We're pretty sure the real hell started with the inception of the TSA. Like most government-mandated alphabet
organizations, the TSA has proven to be utterly useless and just an
endless suck of taxpayer money. Post-TSA, everything has seemed to just
start careening downhill. Fast.

But up until very recently, at the very least, you could usually count on
air travel to be (mostly) safe.

Recommended

Chaya Raichik Turns Tables on NBC News Reporter Preparing a Hit Piece
BRETT T.

Today, as every airline seems to embrace the destructive force known as
DEI, even safety seems to be flying out the window (sorry, bad joke in
this context).

For instance, take a look at this recent Virgin Airlines flight from Manchester, UK, to New York City:


Beg your pardon? It took the PASSENGER to notice that something was wrong
with the wing?

We could have sworn the airplanes had maintenance crews for that sort of
thing. But maybe not so much.


Probably not a bad idea. We'd suggest a screwdriver as well, but TSA would
just end up seizing it from you.


Actually, we're pretty sure they were watching the CEO of United Airlines
in one of his classic drag shows.

Oh, you may be saying, but that's just one flight. It happens. 'Pobody's nerfect,' right?

Yeah. About that ...


Uhh, were they counting on a water landing? Do 757s come equipped with
pontoons now?

We're not entirely sure that is not the goal here. [Puts on tinfoil hat.] Making air travel unsafe would go a long way towards restricting people to 15-minute cities, just like Klaus Schwab always dreamed of.

But wait. The Delta incident was even worse than you imagine.

Sweet Jesus, save us.

To further illustrate what is happening with air travel, let's not forget
the recent adventures of passengers on Alaska Airlines where, just this
month, a door blew off a plane mid-flight, another engine caught fire in mid-air, and today, more great news:

The FAA has now grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes and ordered a full
safety investigation. (Just in the nick of time, guys, as usual.)


It's been a helluva month for Boeing, hasn't it? But don't worry,
everyone. The New York Post has 'assured' us that airplane crashes are now 'safer than ever.'

We feel SO much better.


It's a good question. And, in all fairness, it's probably not ALL related
to DEI.

Except that it kind of is.

Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh talked about all of these incidents recently and while a direct line to DEI is probably not there
for all of them, there is a very clear indirect line.

Because, as Walsh noted, when DEI eliminates all merit from hiring considerations in favor of 'identity hiring,' every employee (regardless
of their race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.) becomes completely
disengaged. Their performance simply does not matter to their employer.
So, accordingly, they stop caring as though it mattered. They become, as
Walsh states it, totally 'checked out.'

It is difficult to argue against the logic there.

And, as Walsh concludes, it's one thing when the person in the drive-thru window at McDonald's or the barista at Starbucks is 'checked out.' All
that's going to happen there is that they get your food or drink order
wrong.

It is something else entirely when employees who are responsible for the
safety of thousands of passengers every day, hurtling through the air at
500 miles per hour on a 120,000-pound explosive projectile, stop caring.

Maybe we should stop focusing on DEI and start focusing on 'making air
travel great again.'

https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2024/01/23/virgin-atlantic-flight- missing-bolts-n2392060

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