The only bad thing about traveling a long way from home to vacation is that you have to travel a long way from home. The vacation was great. Excellent in fact. Travelling in an airplane for 7 hours is not easy. I suppose it could be better if they didn't treat economy or coach passengers like cattle. There are now two different types of economy seats on United Airlines. Economy and Economy plus. About 6 or 7 rows of seats get about 5 extra inches of leg room. For that privilege the passenger gets to pay an extra $140 per seat per direction. They got that leg room by taking it out of the other economy seats.
For those of you who enjoy the bulkhead seats or the seats over the wings, forget it. Those are economy plus. There are even two different types of first class sections. First class and Business class. Tres expensive!
If the seats had a bit more leg room travelling for 8 hours in an airplane would not be as bad. It might even be comfortable. I say all this with full knowledge that operating margins for the airlines are small. It seems like they make lots of money. They collect lots of money but they also spend lots of money to stay in business. They do not make lots of money.
We spent lots of time in London -- on our ship. Truthfully we were only in England one day this trip, but our cruise ship was dominated by passengers from the United Kingdom, a first for us. Two of our table mates at dinner were English. Most people around us in line to get on board (or anything really) were British. Our driver to the airport was British.
Some things we now know to be true.
They don't much like being part of the European Union. If it were up to the public in the United Kingdom, and it may ultimately be just that, they would not be part of the EU. They do not like being told what to do, especially as it relates to social policy in Britain.
There are just as many concerns about fracking in the UK as there are here. The consensus is that it would be great to figure a way to get all that energy out of the ground safely, but it isn't as safe as energy companies want people to believe. Not just yet.
NIMBY (Not in my back yard) is just as popular there as here. Especially as it relates to wind farms. A healthy section of British taxpayers are vexed by the idea that part of their tax dollars subsidizes a wind generator on someone's property and then that someone gets to sell excess power to the "grid" to further reduce that individual's energy costs.
One interesting view from our driver to the airport concerns health care policy. The United Kingdom has had what we call Obamacare for 50 years now. His view. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well. He also said that the first 15 years everyone complained about it. Now they'd never give it up. Fortunate British subjects get a private health bonus as part of their employment benefits. For regular care they use the national health system. For discretionary medicine like a hip or knee replacement they use their private health plans.
Good to be home adjusting to Eastern Daylight Time.
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