Traveled cross-country yesterday, leaving a damp and dreary, mid-fifties Phoenix for a clear and bracing 16 degree Massachusetts. I flew American Airlines and had a layover in Chicago O’Hare with two experiences that illustrate the ying and yang of air travel, 21st-century style.

My flight from Phoenix to O’Hare was unusual, if only for the fact that the plane was only about 80% full. The flight boarded on time, the boarding was orderly (as orderly as can be expected these days), the flight took off on time and arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule. Throughout the flight, service was professional and efficient, and we deplaned as orderly and quickly as we boarded in Phoenix. Because the seat next to me was vacant I had plenty of room to catch up on some much-needed work.

The flight from O’Hare to Boston illustrated everything that’s wrong with air travel these days. The flight was over-booked (never a good thing around the holidays!), the boarding was crazy, as people with gifts and heavy coats overwhelmed the overhead storage early on and the cabin stewards were moving people’s stuff around all over the place to try and fit as much in as possible. They ran out of overhead space midway through Group 3 (thank God I was in Group 2!), causing some Russian guy in the rear to lose it and start verbally abusing a stewardess, which in turn caused the only young child on board to start crying. As a result, a whole bunch of people ended up having to check bags, we got off twenty minutes late, and many folks had their holiday travel start off on the wrong foot.

There’s not much you can say about it, when it comes to air travel these days it is what it is.