If you have another adult to switch with, a long drive can be a pleasant way to travel. Flying involves a lot of rushing around on other people’s schedules. Driving lets you see stuff you’d normally miss and stop whenever you feel like it.
That being said, one road trip from Seattle to Provo, Utah was enough for me. Idaho: 500 miles of Beige.
If i’m traveling to and from places i really wouldn’t want to waste time stopping in various locations, but if i were to embark on a road trip for the sake of the road trip then totally i would be up for stopping wherever. And i’ve done drives through Nevada, Utah and bits of Arizona and California. I get you on the dullness of it, it’s not an easy drive if you don’t have something to focus on.
You mean that this won’t be United’s new flight service?
I first read the headline as “Mom feared being eaten by United crew.” Oddly, such a fear didn’t seem unreasonable to me considering the situation.
@Grey_Devil - I do confess that I like a roadtrip.
Another advantage to driving is that I can bring what I want without worrying about extra checked bag fees, etc.
Everything to do with flying has gotten so infuriating. I don’t know what my actual cost is until I get to the airport. I get to pay a premium for crappy food (assuming there’s any crappy food left by the time the cart gets to me). I have to get to the airport super early. I have to get irradiated or fondled, I’m not overly tall, but I can barely fit in a coach seat. The person in front of me invariably leans their seat back. Flight delays. Dealing with underpaid, low morale employees. Essentially every flight being overbooked. I get to my destination and if it’s not a big city I have to rent a car anyway. I find the current race to the bottom behavior so infuriating that I go out of my way to not give them any encouragement (money).
Eh, that works. Sign me up!
Great minds think alike – I saw the same thing initially. 
I would rather drive if possible than fly. I don’t mind long trips, my car is good on gas and no extra fees. I would only fly if I had to go overseas or had to be there as quickly as possible. Even then I would be tempted to just get on the plane with what I wearing and what I had in my pockets and then buy everything I need when I arrive.
Consider planning a touristic trip on the way?
Well to be honest that slingshot thing sounds fun even if the alternative was a real airline.
At $1000 Houston to Boston, I don’t think there is a similar price. That poor mom got taken well before she even got on the flight.
How about a nice trebuchet launch? No seat belt required!
United = Spirit service at Delta prices.
Well of course! You don’t have much of a choice with the way the airline industry is set up (the set point of this sort of market is a monopoly or at very best a narrow oligopoly) and since the cattl… customers can’t choose to leave and have to fly (because America is inconveniently huge and has hilariously bad rail infrastructure) then brutalizing them just means that their exploitation (and thus profits) are extra efficient. And therefore the company is a nice investment.
Ah. Capitalism.
“United has apologized.”
That’s nothing. My 27mo old was 40 pounds.
I think my kid was 6 before she hit that weight.
Do these kinds of things happen in Russia and Canada?
They’ve shown the market that they can beat, bloody, drop scorpions on, steal from, knock unconscious, and remove their paying customers with pretty much no real impact on their bottom line, AND it’s a merger-friendly administration that probably doesn’t look unkindly on statements about how they’ll be able to really screw people once regulators get of their back. I’d say the investors can feel pretty confident.
