Looking at the issues you identified that reduced the advantage: - full planes (lack of supply) - parking/shuttles (airports are not efficient for the larger nu

Looking at the issues you identified that reduced the advantage: - full planes (lack of supply) - parking/shuttles (airports are not efficient for the larger number of people traveling, and the very slow park-to-gate time that now exists, compared to the past) - security (this alone can add an hour and I doubt it ever adds less than 10 minutes) - "all the BS" - I'm reading this as lack of runway capacity, and generally mismanaged airports. All of those things are the result of government control over the airline industry. Security only serves the purpose of keeping people docile to the government (nothing like being porno scanned or molested to let you know whose really in charge!) and the government control allows for limitations on the number of gates, limitation on routes, etc keeping the planes full and capacity down (not enough gates, airports are not kept up to date like thy would if run by an organization that needed to keep its customers happy, etc.)