Other than TSA, air travel seems better to me than the 1990s.

I don’t need meals for domestic flights, and it’s trivial for me to pack a little something. Noise canceling earphones and ipads/laptops/phones make entertaining oneself trivial.

There is even wifi now, and messaging is free so you can be in constant communication with your friends/family, especially to coordinate pickup.

The planes themselves are better (except maybe if you are a big person). But price per hour of flight time for me has stayed below inflation, so I assume the extra seats helps offset that for me.

I can buy flights anywhere, anytime on my electronic devices, have the boarding passes on my watch or phone or paper, and I can get push notifications about all flights so pickups/dropoffs are simple. I can even see the status of the plane’s previous flight so I get even more of a heads up about delays. There is also luggage tracking available now, at least with airtags if not from the airline itself.

All good and valid points. Yet I still have the impression airports are passenger hostile, e.g. try to find a water dispenser without walking a mile.

"Other than TSA" sounds to me very much like "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

In the early 1990s, my girlfriend was scared of flying. I went with her to the gate for emotional support. I also sometimes met people when they arrived at the gate. No longer, at least, not without some planning.

In the early 1990s, full names and id checks were not required. This made for an active resale market which has since disappeared, with the profit going to the airliners. My mother and I share the same first initial, which proved personally useful one time when we booked the ticket as "E. Smith" since we weren't sure which of us was going make the trip. No longer.

In the 1990s, from drop-off to gate in the small city I lived was about 5 minutes, for carry-on. Check-in at the gate by showing the ticket. The only inspection was for guns. I regularly carried a pocket knife back then, even on planes. No longer.

In the early 2000s I traveled international. My carry-on at times included bottles of beer (to share with people in Europe) and wine (returning from South Africa), since I thought that would be safer than in my luggage. I bought them in regular stores. No longer.

Around 2008 I made the mistake once of returning international via SFO to visit friends there. I knew where they lived - I've driven there many times. But I didn't know their zip, only their street address, and there was no way for me to check in the new automated kiosk without that vital piece of useless information. I was able to look it up, but I was flustered and in panic that I would miss the flight.

Back in the 1990s, as US citizen I could just show up in most countries, with only my passport - no visa, no fingerprinting, no automated facial recognition, and no "electronic system for travel authorization" or rather its foreign equivalents.

It even worked the other way. I had friends of mine from South Africa going to Canada for a conference, with a transfer in the US. They didn't know they were supposed to get a US visa even though they didn't leave the airport. But the US at the time did have the TWOV (Transit Without Visa) program, which meant they were able to get to the conference and back home. They even had a comfortable TWOV room at the airport, and an escort for those who needed to step outside for a smoke. The TWOV program was suspended in 2003 and has not been restored.

Air travel in the 1990s felt like freedom. Now it feels like a key part of modern government security and control, with little leeway for humanity.