Has anyone ever done any kind of study on the tradeoffs? Hub flying requires twice as many landings and takeoffs compared to direct flights, for the passengers, but it can use bigger planes and fewer flights, so the overall total comes back down. I remember first thinking about this when I read of Airbus's rationalization for the A380, that the increasing number of passengers would require some combination of bigger planes, more airports, and more flights, but the last two factors were already near maximum. Boeing was betting that the last two factors had room for expansion, that passengers hated super hubs and long out indirect routing, and that there wasn't enough market for huge planes to justify a completely new product.

In between the hub and direct choices you get multiple hubs, which is basically what happens when regional jets come into the picture, altho they don't call them that. Lots of smaller hubs and more transfers per passenger, but not the ludicrous indirect routes you had with the few super hubs.

So I wonder, has anyone ever done studies of this? Maybe it will just take a few more years for the optimum hubbiness to settle out.

Absolutely everyone is miserable flying on airlines in the US these days. Yet -- absolutely everyone will relentlessly search out the cheapest fare. (Yes, I include myself in the generalization.)

We are getting what we pay for. All the other explanations are only excuses.

You chose to take a "glass is half-full" approach by suggesting that we ought to appreciate how cheap airline travel is and accept some inconvenience. I tend towards the "half empty" side by complaining how awful service is and how frustrating it is to have no alternative.

But we're talking about the same thing. If the flying public should ever decide that it wants to pay for a well managed, premium service that recalls the good old days of air travel, I have no doubt that someone will satisfy the demand -- for a price.

The state of the Airline system world wide is definetly taxed. With the current administration in the United States a confrontational approach to the Air Traffic Control system and the people who make it run is as bad as when I was a PATCO controller in 1981. That aspect of the problem doesn't look good now. The FAA is famous for being very bad at employing new technology. The United States system will not restrict the Airlines and the use of RJ's simply because the business's would scream bloody murder at the administration. Part of the solution is to build more runways. And that is very dificult as well. Traveling at off peak times both seasonal and daily adjustments are one solution but in reality the long term solution is more government control and more airports. Las Vegas is way ahead of most metro areas and they are already planning a new airport and and are planning some other major changes as well. Things will get worse before they get better.

Thanks, Patrick, for your usual good work and the WSJ article, which is very well done.

I see another problem with solving this issue: the airlines have invested big bucks in purchasing these relatively-new RJs, so that imposing a minimum-seat limit is a no-go from their point of view, as their financial plans (and, likely, the terms by which they were able to get the credit to buy them) assume a decent number of years of service from them.

One effective, but unlikely, solution to the Northeast issue is to institute real, high-speed rail between most (if not all of the Boston-Washington corrdior). The right of way exists, but it would likely require a multi-billion-dollar infusion to put in the appropriate tracks and possibly to subsidize rolling-stock acquisition. It's insane that ANYONE flies between Philadelphia and New York.

And here's a recommendation for passengers: Learn the system.

Don't forget location, location, location. I've been honestly surprised by reports of how awful air travel is these days -- I seem to always miss the horrifying experiences that other passengers report as commonplace. Reading "Ask the Pilot" I'm beginning to think that at least one reason must be that, as a frequent Southwest customer (sorry, Patrick), I generally fly out of second-tier regional airports rather than main metropolitan ones. Oakland instead of SFO, Long Beach instead of LAX, Midway instead of O'Hare, BWI instead of National.

Southwest's history and business model have resulted in serious infrastucture investment in these smaller airports, many of which were regarded as sleepy stepcousins before the cattle car airline came along and put them on the map. The result is what you'd expect -- not everything runs on time all the time but overall it's incredibly smooth. I fly very frequently and can count on one hand the number of times I've been seriously delayed. The only downside is having a little further to travel on the ground on the terminal end.

But it's a price that savvy flyers are willing to pay. Little T F Green Airport in Rhode Island was a backwater until Southwest, shut out of Logan by the majors' scheming, essentially subsidized a massive expansion and turned Green into its New England beachhead. To this day Southwest still doesn't operate out of Logan but the mountain has been moving to Mohammad -- Boston travelers are increasingly choosing the inconvenience of traveling an hour to Rhode Island to fly rather than to run the gauntlet at Logan, even shelling out $100.+ in cab fare.

So bring on the RJs, and the LJs and the air taxis too -- just stop trying to cram them into the landing queues at the metropolitan hubs. There are any number of underutilized regional airports that could use the business, and it would probably end up being more pleasant if not actually faster for all those irate passengers too.

Service isn't that great from the airlines, but the level of service is about the norm from American businesses and government agencies today.

I got a letter from my state instructing me to have my car inspected. I drove to the state inspection facility and was asked by the employee if I had an appointment. No, I didn't know I needed one. Well, he said, you are in luck. If you had an appointment, the wait would be three hours. Since you don't, you can go home.

I tried to sell some stock through Merrill Lynch. Pretty big outfit, you would think they would have good service. No. You have to fight your way through voice mailboxes, secure websites, and various other forms of torture. What should have taken five minutes took three hours, and unfortunately I didn't have Elliot Spitzer demanding they give me a free meal.

I had to go to the hospital and eventually have surgery. Boy, do you need a sense of humor for this. The paperwork, confusion, waste and incompetence is stunning. And this is at one of the best hospitals in the state. I saw the movie Sicko which implied that if the government paid all medical bills these problems would disappear. This is roughly equivalet to saying if airlines were regulated flying would be marvelous. Yeah, right.