If I could fly privately I would. Sure, everybody says that, but after my last three commercial flight experiences, it seems the airlines are becoming less like transportation and more like a hostage situation every day.
Set to return last month from Schedulers and Dispatchers on a rainy day in California, I headed to the airport well in advance of my JetBlue redeye, figuring that with nothing better to do in a soggy San Jose, I’d check in, ditch my luggage and relax over a fine airport establishment dinner. Surprised when none of the video screens above the ticket counters displayed a JetBlue logo, I noticed a small sign perched on top of one of them stating the JetBlue counter would open three hours hence, effectively tethering me with my luggage in the check-in area until then. In the intervening 180 minutes there, I noted I was far from the only passenger inconvenienced thusly, a point I conveyed when the airline employees finally took their places behind the counter.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
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