I came across something I posted in 2007 and I’ve been pondering it for a bit.

I recently flew Etihad’s first class suites, connecting from terminal 3 in Abu Dhabi to terminal 1 where the business class lounge is packed solid and poorly provisioned. I then wound up at a bus gate out to my business class onward flight to India. My round trip ticket cost me some American Airlines miles of course but less than $100 in taxes and fees.

Here’s what travel used to cost.

In England it was calculated that one horse was needed for every mile of a journey on a well-maintained turnpike road. So, for the 185 miles from Manchester to London, 185 horses had to be kept stabled and fed to deal with the seventeen changes required by the stagecoaches which traveled the route. Those horses in turn required an army of coachmen, postillions, guards, grooms, ostlers and stable-boys to keep them running.

…A journey from Augsburg to Innsbruck by stagecoach, although little more than 60 miles as the crow flies, would have cost an unskilled laborer more than a month’s wages just for the fare.

I won’t complain about Etihad’s terminal 1 business class lounge.

And — for the next day or so at least — I will not even complain about airlines who add fuel surcharges onto the cost of award tickets.

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