Victory Soap v. 2.0

Well, the chief reason is the fact that if something happens you're a jillion feet up in the air, but stuff like this doesn't help:

It’s only when I’m seated at the gate, looking out at the tower and the vast expanse of runway that I feel some hint of the old jet-age kick that airports once gave me, back when flying was a rarity for most people except executives (whatever they were), when you got dressed up to fly, when there were no metal detectors and searches but there were meals on the plane. It’s official, and it’s sad, to think that I hate to fly: there used to be such a promise about it. Flying was new, it was clean, it was modern, and most of all it partook of the shining future. It wasn’t this grim, harried business. It’s a victim of its own success; it’s like taking the bus.

And I like that he uses the Tolkien quote. Tolkien wasn't a Luddite, just realistic about the dark side to our shiny new technology.