The Travel Industry Is A Mess

Above, despite high demand for flights, the airlines don't have enough planes or staff. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It is a good thing that I mainly travel in my RV, for the travel industry is best described as a "shitshow" right now.

Despite the travel industry being a mess, people are traveling anyway.

New York Magazine has an article on what people are currently experiencing, and it ain't pretty.

They begin it with:

Wall Street veteran Peter Schiff knew well ahead of time that he’d need to renew his 7-year-old son’s passport for their June trip to Switzerland. Passports for minors must be renewed in person, at the passport office, but on their first attempt, the Schiffs were told it was too early. With service still limited due to the pandemic, the Stamford, Connecticut, office would only process emergency passport applications — which require appointments within 72 hours of the trip. But when Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, a billion-dollar money manager, tried to make an appointment, there was no longer any availability in that window at all. It wasn’t just the Stamford location that was booked up: “The only state where we could get an appointment was Hawaii,” says Schiff.

The investor began contemplating his options: Cancel and postpone his trip‚ a change he estimates would have cost him $10,000 to $20,000 extra in airfare, or fly his wife and son to Hawaii for an overnight, with at least 12 hours of travel each way. “I was looking at 10-to-12-thousand bucks to get over there, and a hotel,” he says. “The government really doesn’t care much about people,” adds Schiff, a goldbug and longtime stock-market bear who has strong opinions on bureaucracy, debt, and loose monetary policy. “It’s really inconveniencing Americans who want to travel.”

In the end, a Twitter tipster — Schiff has more than 500,000 followers on the platform — suggested he use a company called ItsEasy Passport & Visa Services. Schiff was able to get an appointment on the Upper West Side for the day prior to his flight. When he arrived, he saw a line stretching from the building down the street and around the block — but an employee told him that was the line for people without appointments, which are required. “He said none of them are going to get in, none of them,” recalls Schiff. “I heard so many horror stories.” But when he finally made it into the actual passport office, he was surprised to see it anything but crowded. “Once you get in, the place is empty,” he says. “They had a skeleton crew.”

Schiff’s experience of disorganization, chaotic delays, and huge extra expenses is increasingly typical as more Americans seek to get back out into the world and travel, after 16 months spent largely at home. Millions are finding that the travel industry isn’t yet ready for them. As of the July 4 holiday weekend, travel returned to 98 percent of pre-pandemic highs, with 5 percent more road-trippers than in 2019 and 90 percent as many airline travelers, according to AAA. “I equate what’s going on to travelers being given the keys to a terrific sports car but then being told they can drive no more than 40 miles per hour,” says Henry Harteveldt, a veteran travel-industry analyst.

Their advice for a stress-free vacation, stay at home. Oh, the irony!

To read the full article, go here.