Wings

Not too long ago if I wanted to fly direct from Seattle to London my only choice, for better or worse, was British Airways.  Now, there are 3 choices.  In addition to British Airways, we now have Virgin Atlantic operating a service (and I think using the new Dreamliner airplane no less) and later this year Norwegian Air are also starting a direct route to Gatwick.  This is hopefully good – with some competition should come some cheaper flights (though not sure I would want to endure a 10 hour flight in the economy section of Norwegian Air, no matter how much cheaper it might be).  And I don’t trust the airlines not to work together to keep the cost of flights artificially inflated.  It also says a lot about the growth of Seattle – over the last few years, Delta have made Seattle a hub (they are partners with Virgin Atlantic) and we apparently have one of the fastest growing airports in the world and the largest covered parking garage in North America (13,000 spots! – I tend to use a cheaper offsite parking lot).  Of course, this all means horrendous traffic, horrendous queues for security, and horrendous crowding in the terminals – I would especially recommend staying well clear of the airport on those dreadful peak travel times (like 4th July and Thanksgiving weekends).  I haven't decided on the trips I'm going to make this year, but I will travel to San Francisco at least once for work, so that will mean enduring the stresses of economy air travel...