I used to hate taking long day flights. If I had to spend 12 hours in the air from New York to Tokyo, or Zurich to Bangkok, or Tel Aviv to Newark, I preferred overnight flights. Even since the advent of on-demand entertainment, personal video screens and portable devices like the iPad, those flights just seemed to last forever. So most of the time I would fly overnight. However, the timing didn't always work out, and overnight flights tend to be significantly more expensive than all-day flights, often much greater than 50% more.

Two months ago, I posted an article about a United Airlines series of failures that, if not so painful for their paying customers - and their employees too - would be laughable. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of reading an interview with the legendary Gordon Bethune, who turned around Continental Airlines in a single year, from a loss of $600MM in FY1994 to a profit of $225MM in FY1995.

I expect this topic to get me a lot of flak. After all, everyone likes dumping on the airlines, including me. But hear me out. I fly a lot of miles every year, mostly in coach, sometimes in business. Most of the time, the journey is tiring and uneventful, sometimes it is annoying, and sometimes downright offensive. I regularly hear and read stories about the decline of comfort, service and value in air travel over the last 30 years.