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That changed when the plane was landing. At first I thought people were applauding, which was a bit surprising, but then I realized that the sound was that of the entire roof shaking, you could actually see the roof plates moving against each other. The flight was certainly simple enough anyway, no entertainment and seats which could be folded forward.

Aeroflot, at least the international trips, is less scary than say Nepal Air though.. A few weeks after I flew Nepal Air out of Kathmandu I saw this quite believable story: http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1189004157.html

At the international airport in Kualua Lumpur they have a robot train to pick up passengers and take them to another terminal.

Chicago O'Hare has something similar as well:

http://www.airwise.com/airports/us/ORD/ORD_09.html

I have never used it to go between terminals but it is nice to use to get to/from the long term parking lots. I have been using it for years and never had a problem with it.

And which large profitable airline would that be? If you are talking the United States, there is only one - Southwest. And since you didn't seem to know, Southwest hedged 85% of its fuel expenses through the end of 2006 at the equivalent of $26 per barrel, not the $60+ it is running presently. And those fuel hedges are running out, and I don't think any banks are willing to bet like that again.

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1111087731.html

http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/printout/0 ,8816,1074147,00.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A551 40-2005Apr14.html

Do the math on that, and its closer to 40% - 50% of operating costs when that runs out; Southwest has freely admitted that it would be losing money just like all the other large U.S. airlines if it was paying market prices for fuel. Presently, Continental and Southwest have industry leading CASMs of about $.09 when running 737s, of which about $.04 is fuel. Make fuel $400 per barrel, and your fuel CASM goes to about $.32, leading to a total CASM of $.37, an increase a factor of 4, not 2.

In addition, if the price of a seat goes up by a factor of 4, a tremendous amount of traffic will die away, which means either the airlines will have to park a tremendous number of airplanes with expensive leases, raise the ticket prices even more than 4 times to cover it, go into bankruptcy to cover the leases, etc. - airlines do NOT shrink in size easily, because they have such high initial capital costs for equipment.... But let's assume that the prices "only" go up by a factor of four.

Hotel in the U.K. (figures taken from friend who just came back)
75 pounds/night / .554 pounds/USD * 21 nights = $2,843 hotel cost.

Flight round trip EWR to Heathrow on Continental (SWA doesn't go international): today's cost: $729.00 round-trip. Times 4? $2,916.

Your holiday just got more expensive.

But I agree with you that $400 a barrel for oil will have much more significant effects than doubling your holiday cost. Quadruple the cost of anything that has to be transported or farmed.

I simply was pointing out that DIA is a symbol of an industry that has peaked, and is on the way downhill, like vinyl records, incadescent light bulbs and CRT manufacture. And it's a bit depressing for me.

...your country.
Please don't start with the "I have nothing to hide so what" comments, because they mean nothing. The fact that people are treated like a criminal before they ever committed a criminal offense is plain wrong. This, apart from the possibility that people are wrongfully accused.

I think the European parliament agrees, they didn't whistle Bolkestein (yes, the same person that loves software patents) back from his deal with the US for nothing.
Time will learn whether perhaps a mass drop in tourism and business-trips to the US will have an impact on this decision.

A few years ago, an MD-80 made an emergency landing at Bryce Canyon, in Southern Utah, on a runway barely large enough for small private aircraft. The amazing thing was that they actually flew the beast out of there. (I can't remember if they had to strip seats or anything, but I know that it must have had minimal fuel, and no passengers in order to clear the fence.)

Here is an article about it, but without much detail.