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Blog: Bleak future for air travelBy CNN's Richard Quest  Quest: The knock-on affect will be huge for all businesses involved in the aviation industry. QUICKVOTEYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- Update: August 14, 2006 So this afternoon I am traveling to Latvia. My flight isn't until 1800 out of London's Gatwick airport. The flight is six hours away but I am already having to think about what time I need to be at the airport. My mental mathematics are in overdrive. You know the usual -- it will take me an hour to get to the airport. I usually need to check in an hour before etc (it's a short-haul flight where in the past I wouldn't have taken any luggage on board at all.) Now I am having to plan to be at the airport about three hours before. Allowing another hour or so to get to the airport means ... gosh ... I probably should be leaving for the airport anytime soon! I have pared down my luggage to the minimum. I have a check-in bag and my usual hand baggage which will now have to go into the hold. In that will be my laptop, my iPod, my phone (at the last possible moment I can be separated from it) my briefing notes for the interviews I am doing etc. And all the usual bric-a-brac I carry. I would have canceled this trip if I could. Yes I would. It's simply too inconvenient to go through all of this palaver just for a short 2 day filming trip that we could have re-arranged, if we didn't lose the money on the tickets. How typical that the UK authorities have reduced the restrictions but they don't come into force until after I have flown. But I guess this will be good for me. It will be my chance to experience what hundreds of thousands of passengers have been going through for the past five days for myself. It took my sister and her family seven hours to check in for a short-haul easyJet flight to Spain over the weekend. And once they had checked in and gone through to the lounge they reported no working public payphones and overpriced food and drink. I am also curious to see what sort of security measures are being adopted by other airports and how severe they are being with their hand baggage restrictions (gels and liquids?) Because the truth is there is no point in making "Fortress UK" if other airports like FRA, CDG or AMS become relatively easy targets. I will report back tonight, when I get my laptop back. Posted: August 11, 2006And so the rules have changed once again. The alleged terrorist attack from British airports has thrown the aviation world into chaos and brought part of the industry once again close to collapse. What do I mean by these strong words? Surely, you point out, the planes are still flying and passengers are still traveling. Yes that's true, but that's taking a narrow view of what has taken place. And believe me, what has happened is very significant. And, if you read to the end of this blog, I am afraid to say I am very bleak about the future. At a stroke all the existing rules on passenger hand baggage have had to be rewritten and in a draconian way. I am writing this blog at Los Angeles International Airport as I try to make my way back to London. The U.S. has overnight decided that no liquids of any sort are being allowed in one's luggage because of the potential risk from liquid explosives. So now everyone is being searched and lotions, hairspray, bottles of any liquid are being removed (I failed the first barrier of this test when I forgot about a bottle of water in my briefcase.) And across the U.S. aviation system, planes may still be flying but they are delayed, security costs have suddenly risen and there is huge uncertainty over what to do next. For instance, at LAX The Body Shop had to close because it was selling, liquids which passengers might take on board. And it's worse in London, the epicenter of this latest storm where at a stroke no hand baggage is allowed on at all. Although no-one expects these restrictions will be permanent, the disruption to the traveling world has been huge. And crucially, new rules will have to be written to accommodate this new threat. It is these new rules that will affect our traveling lives. And that is what I really want to address. What will the new rules look like and what further measures will we have to go through? For business travelers the trend has been to try to take more and more onboard the aircraft in larger and larger bags. Huge wheelies and garment bags are squeezed into overhead compartments. I am as guilty as you are. I only check baggage when I fail to convince the check-in person that it will fit on board. BAA, the owners of Heathrow and other major airports, had already launched a new campaign to enforce the rules about what is allowed in the cabin -- much to the consternation of premium passengers who had always been allowed to pretty much take what they liked. Now those days are gone. The new rules will be far stricter and harsher than anything we have seen before. Going through airports will become an ordeal as different bits of security search for different threats. We already remove shoes, laptops and cigarette lighters when going to the U.S. Now we can add liquids, gels and perfumes to that mix. And there will be NO uniformity. The U.S. will inevitably adopt the strictest requirements enforced in the most ham-fisted fashion of "my way or the highway". The Europeans will shrug as if to say: "Don't blame us," and large parts of the world will just pay lip service to the threats. For passengers it will be frustrating as we realize what we did in one airport won't suffice in another. We will always be in the wrong, because we will never know the rules. I am painting a bleak picture because I see only a bleak future for the traveling public. Getting on a plane will become, to paraphrase Hobbes, "Nasty Brutal and long." We will do it because we have to. 
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