“The Quiet Indignities of Modern Air Travel: How Engineered Discomfort Erodes Our Humanity”

There was a time when air travel embodied a certain dignity. People dressed for the occasion, service was attentive, and the journey itself held value beyond mere transportation. After years of boarding planes weekly for work and leisure—for a variety of reasons—I’ve flown far less in recent years. My recent journey with family didn’t make me regret the hiatus—in fact, it revealed just how far we’ve fallen from that once-refined and respectful approach to travel.

What strikes me most profoundly is the seemingly deliberate, systematic dehumanization that now defines the experience. We’re herded through security theater where we’re radiated by full-body scanners, randomly separated from our possessions and travel companions, groped by strangers in uniform, and forced to stand shoeless and beltless in a performance that masquerades as safety but more closely resembles ritual humiliation. The data supports this perception: according to a 2023 Cornell University study, TSA screenings have a 95% failure rate in detecting actual threats while successfully stripping millions of their dignity daily.

The humiliation continues throughout the journey. Airlines have reduced seat width by an average of 3.5 inches and legroom by 4 inches over the past two decades while simultaneously increasing the number of seats per aircraft by up to 30%. I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t accidental design, but rather calculated discomfort engineered to extract maximum profit while conditioning passengers to expect and accept increasingly degrading treatment.

The relentless push toward Real ID and digital identification systems represents something far more insidious than mere procedural evolution. These systems codify a surveillance apparatus that transforms freedom of movement into a constantly monitored privilege—one that mirrors the larger, creeping normalization of digital control in every facet of life. We surrender our biometric data not because it demonstrably improves security, but because we’ve been conditioned to accept invasive monitoring as the price of mobility.

While I was away, I wound up in a conversation with a veteran pilot—now flying private aircraft after forced retirement at 65—that revealed another dimension of this decline. The commercial airline industry systematically removes its most experienced aviators through mandatory age policies rather than capability assessments, creating an experience vacuum filled by less seasoned pilots operating under pressures of maximized efficiency and cost-cutting. Meanwhile, the pilot gave me an earful about how diversity initiatives prioritize demographic targets over demonstrated skill—potentially compromising safety. Unless you can afford to fly private, you’re stuck with this increasingly problematic system.

The economics of flight have been transformed as well. Basic services that were once included—baggage, seat selection, even water—have been unbundled and repackaged as premium options. According to industry reports, airlines generated over $75 billion in ancillary fees in 2023 alone—revenue extracted not by adding value but by intentionally degrading the standard experience and charging to restore fragments of dignity.

This isn’t freedom. Yet we endure it because we want—or need—to get somewhere. It’s the perfect encapsulation of what I’ve previously called “The Price of Convenience“—our willingness to trade dignity, privacy, and autonomy for the ability to move efficiently through space. The system is engineered this way by design, not by accident. Let’s be explicitly clear: these are not evolutionary changes but revolutionary ones, deliberately implemented to condition us to accept increasingly dehumanizing treatment.

I don’t believe it’s paranoid to recognize patterns of control when they present themselves so blatantly. Our compliance is being trained through a thousand small indignities, and air travel represents perhaps the most concentrated example of this training program. We learn to submit to arbitrary authority, relinquish personal boundaries, and endure discomfort without protest—lessons that serve us poorly as citizens of what was once called a free society.

What troubles me most is the recognition that these changes serve a purpose beyond profit. There’s a demoralizing quality to being processed like inventory, and this cumulative effect keeps us docile, compliant, and easily controlled. In many ways, the flight experience mirrors trends in healthcare, education, and public life—systems that no longer serve but manage us.

I’m currently working on a significant four-part series about mind control that I hope to begin sharing in the next couple of days. If it resonates, it may be the most important work I’ve published in this space so far. Regardless, I appreciate you indulging this venting on our collective surrender of dignity in transit. The way we’ve normalized such treatment reveals much about what we’ve already surrendered, and what we may yet lose if we don’t recognize the pattern unfolding before us.

Sometimes a journey serves to remind us of how far we’ve strayed from what once seemed non-negotiable: the right to move through the world with our humanity intact.

Originally published here: https://stylman.substack.com/p/the-quiet-indignities-of-modern-air

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Trying to figure it out, like everyone else… @jstylman on Twitter

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