What else has changed? Well, especially for the surviving legacy carriers - which, due to labor agreements, tend to have significantly higher operating costs than newer airlines like Southwest and Jet Blue (both of which are pretty friendly to pickers, by the way) - the need to optimize revenues is intense. On the heels of the now-infamous United Airlines incident in which a customer was dragged out of his seat, Vox wrote a fascinating article exploring some of the issues related to this consolidation. That's good for the airlines, not so much for traveling pickers who want to carry instruments aboard. The net result in a number of cities is reduced travel options and, especially for merged lines that once served the same markets independently, a reduced number of daily departures, leading to fuller planes. Due to mergers, there are roughly half as many major carriers, as brands like Northwest, Continental, Airtran and USAir were absorbed by Delta, United, Southwest and American, respectively (actually, USAir absorbed American, not the other way around, but decided to keep the American Airlines marque). The air travel world has changed significantly since the first edition of this article was posted. Here’s the lowdown, and answers to oft-asked questions about the zen of being a traveling picker.
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Most recent update: Includes information on startup U.S.-based airline Breeze in the Airlines section, and the Airbus A-220 in the Aircraft sectionĬan you fly with a banjo? In a word, yes.