...and yet life and commerce will go on. It puts into perspective the large amount of non-essential air travel, doesn't it? Looking at it with a jaundiced eye, is not most travel non-essential these days? ("I simply must go to Tuscany, its on my bucket list!") When the Trans-Atlantic cable was laid, people said ocean travel would be drastically reduced. With conference calling in the 1960s, and now with internet, SAT phones and HD i-pads, do we really need to cross the Atlantic by the thousands every day? Let alone the Pacific and every continent on the globe. ... Yes, in an aviation forum, these are heretical posits, so classify me a pariah. Have I traveled overseas and crossed continents? Yes, call my a hypocrite, but I truly do not yearn to see Machu Picchu, The Louvre, or the solid waste and sewage contamination problems on the formerly pristine Galapagos Islands. Have I seen Chichen Itza? Yes. Am I better for it? Nope. Before you type me a barb, remember I said "most travel" not all travel.