By any name, it's still a crap airline

I hate flying. I hate the airline industry. I specifically hate USAirways. 

I don't hate the employees of USAirways, just the company itself. It is the epitome of all that has gone wrong with American capitalism. It is a company that systematically degrades the quality of its product while constantly increasing the cost for it. It is a company that treats customers the same way it treats their luggage. 

The company is posting record profits -- up about 90 percent after merging with American Airlines in 2013. That's a function of two things: reduced competition on more than 1,600 routes, and dramatically lower fuel costs. The guy who runs USAirways/American makes about $20 million a year.

You'd think windfall profits might allow slight improvements in customer service. If you do think that, you should get your head out of your ass.  On a recent flight out to Vegas, and then back a week later, I experienced what has become the depressing standard in U.S. air travel: every flight delayed or canceled, every connection missed, far more time at the gate than in the air, and finally the airline's total indifference to its customers' comfort. (And no, bad weather was not a factor.)

I won't bore you with further details; you've probably got worse stories of your own, involving any airline in the country. Let's just say USAirways owes me for one night in a smoke-fouled LaQuinta in Charlotte. No doubt the check is in the mail.

How did we let it get to this point, the point where a Greyhound bus offers a more elegant experience than a Boeing 737?  I don't know. The product gets crappier and the price keeps rising and the airlines say demand has never been higher. 

You sit at an airport Starbucks and watch the thousands tow their luggage past and you wonder where they're all going.  You wonder why they're hurrying, since their connecting flight is either long delayed or already departed. At the USAirways customer service counter, the line is always 50 yards long. And no one leaves smiling.