Leavin' on a Jet Plane

We put up with the long security check-in lines. We sighed as we surrendered our nail clippers and penknives. We took off every possible metallic item except our fillings and shuffled through metal detectors in our stocking feet.

But we grinned and bore it because we understood the need for security and air travel was still bearable, even if it was coming to increasingly resemble the Greyhound bus experience of thirty years ago.

But now the technological sophistication of the Bad Guys has advanced, as it always does, and the bar has been raised substantially for the rest of us.

No liquids, gels, or anything remotely resembling them. Those Dr. Scholls gel insoles are right out; ditto any child's toy with gel components. Also, no books, laptops, MP3 players, cell phones, or pretty much anything else that might make a transatlantic flight bearable. Even electronic key fobs are banned in Britain.

Has long-distance air travel finally jumped the shark? History suggests that this just might be the case.

Consider: Until the spread of mass, mechanized transit in the last century or so, long-distance travel was, for the vast majority of people, a dangerous and expensive proposition. International travel was even more so, and usually, therefore, the exclusive privilege of the very rich.

Think about it. Before the advent of the ocean liner and then the airplane, overseas travel was risky business, indeed. If the weather or scurvy didn't get you, pirates (we'd call them terrorists now) would. Even on the ground, travel via coach for any distance was slow, unpleasant and, of course, there was always the risk of highwaymen.

For a while we lived in a bubble of relatively safe and inexpensive long-distance travel. As the gap between the technology of travel and the technology of travel disruption closes, that bubble may be about to burst. Safe air travel may soon become so expensive that only the wealthy - with private jets and private security personnel - will be able to afford it. Mass air transit will simply be too dangerous.

We live, alas, in interesting times.