It’s a total shitshow. Photo: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Wall Street veteran Peter Schiff knew well ahead of time that he’d need to renew his 7-year-old son’s passport for their June trip to Switzerland. Passports for minors must be renewed in person, at the passport office, but on their first attempt, the Schiffs were told it was too early.
Schiff’s experience of disorganization, chaotic delays, and huge extra expenses is increasingly typical as more Americans seek to get back out into the world and travel, after 16 months spent largely at home. Millions are finding that the travel industry isn’t yet ready for them. As of the July 4 holiday weekend, travel returned to 98 percent of pre-pandemic highs, with 5 percent more road-trippers than in 2019 and 90 percent as many airline travelers, according to AAA.
In light of the frustrations, it’s perhaps no surprise that travelers are behaving badly: Airline crews have reported 3,420 incidents of “unruly” passengers so far in 2021, with more than 200 of those in the first two weeks of July alone; investigations of those cases are already at least quadruple what they were in an entire pre-pandemic year. Besides refusing to wear masks, passengers have lately punched, bitten, and headbutted flight attendants and fellow fliers.
And as hard as it may be to get a flight, it may be even harder to rent a car once you get there. The rental-car industry off-loaded about a third of its vehicles last year as demand plummeted, and now finds it can’t buy them back fast enough — especially as a computer-chip shortage has bottlenecked car manufacturing.
Some hotel guests, though, are finding that the lack of dependable services does detract from a vacation. Josh Shrader, a data analyst based outside of Atlanta, took his family of four on a five-night trip at a Marriott in Chattanooga over the July 4 holiday.
jenwieczner What stuck most about this article was that a Billion dollar CEO had a hard time getting some passport renewed says “The government really doesn’t care much about people” 😂 really? ask him to ask the GOP - they want to dismantle the entire government apparatus.
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