Welcome to 2019… Perhaps this will be a year of invention and innovation. But maybe–just maybe–in the world of travel, and most importantly, could it also be the year of some common sense?

Here with my modest New Year’s resolutions and I challenge any government official, airport authority or airline executive to tell me WHY they can’t do any–or all of these initiatives.

Let’s start with airports and flight scheduling. Why are airlines allowed to schedule 34 flights all leaving at 8 a.m.? It’s an impossible situation. In the most ideal conditions at any airport, a runway can handle maybe 23 departures in any one hour. So, if you’re on that 34th scheduled flight at 8 a.m., you’re never going to be on time. Make airlines schedule on the basis of real time, without embracing the need for a competitive edge that they can’t deliver anyway.

And then, there’s immigration and passport control. There needs to be an ironclad international agreement that if a government builds a passport control station, then that station must be manned for any incoming international flight. What’s the point of arriving in a country–any country–to stand in line for two hours after an 11 hour flight to see 45 passport control stations and only five of them with officers? It’s the worst welcome any country can give its arriving passengers. And then there’s a strong economic argument for staffing those stations and then making the lines move. The faster someone clears passport control, the faster they can spend money.

Trust between terminals and trust between countries. The presumption is that once I clear security, I am in a sterile area. If I then travel to another country and need to change planes, I am walking in another sterile area, and I am already considered screened and not a security risk. Someone then needs to tell me why I then have to go through security again. Countries either have acceptable security or they don’t. If you’re doing a second screening of passengers at their connecting airport, then the message you are sending is that the originating airport’s security was deficient.

Airport design. I am a firm believer that no airport terminal designer should be paid for his or her work until they have to walk through their terminals. Two of the newest airport terminals in the world: the renovated Terminal 2 at London’s Heathrow and Terminal 4 at JFK are two sad examples of stupidity in design and function. Try walking from the United gates at Terminal 2 to passport control. It’s a sadistic endurance march. (And to think they named this the Queen’s terminal–if her majesty were to walk it, she’d be dead). And try walking from gate 45 at Terminal 4 at JFK to baggage claim. This could clearly be considered a conspiracy of Fitbit manufacturers. And it is not appreciated.

The ultimate absurdity is the airline boarding process. Time and motion and other efficiency experts have tried for more than four decades to improve the airline boarding process. Do you board from the back to the front? The window to the aisle? From the front to the back? And each and every time, the answer is…there IS no answer. However, while we don’t know what might work, we also know what WON’T work, and having more than four boarding groups on any one flight is just plain counterproductive. The only things it creates are confusion, chaos and a much longer time to board the plane..And now Delta Air Lines has doubled down on this absurdity…starting in January, the airline has announced EIGHT boarding groups for every one of their flights. And, it’s based on what you paid for your ticket, not just just where you are sitting on the plane. And believe me, no one will really know what group they’re in…or why. Under the Delta approach, the only group it’s missing are the folks with personality disorders! The real solution can be found in the KISS principle–keep it simple…stupid. Look at how Southwest boards its planes. Yes, the Southwest boarding experience reminds me of a fire drill I had in second grade, but it works. Everyone knows where they stand, and they file on the plane based on the time they actually checked in for the flight. It’s so much more democratic this way. But for the other major airlines, my suggestion to improve the boarding process is threefold. Number one group to board: people with disabilities. They should always come first. Military in or out of uniform..second and followed by…professional travelers. And then, amateurs should board and no more pre-boarding families and kids. Let’s do it a different way. Make it a federal law that airlines MUST sit families together, then let them board LAST. The kids can do more misbehaving at the gate, and because they are sitting with mom or dad, parents might actually behave more like parents on a flight and take responsibility for their kids.

My next New Year’s resolution is to embrace reality when it comes to airline food…and wine. Think about this: Does having a celebrity chef designing an airline menu influence my choice of airline? Hardly. It is physically and chemically impossible for any chef to replicate their quality of food or service in the air. So, other than money, why would any chef want to degrade his or her brand? Let’s just call airline food what it is–an oxymoron–and move on. If an airline still wants to provide food (for a fee or as part of the ticket price) just keep it simple, keep it fresh, and keep it uncooked (remember, by definition, airline food is heated…twice).

This then brings me to the subject of alcohol. Airlines should spend less time and money on their wine lists and more time and money giving us better legroom. Alcohol on a plane is not a good idea. Altitude, pressure, lack of humidity and dehydration don’t mix well with alcohol. One drink in the air is the equivalent to two and a half on the ground. This is not a pretty picture. And after all, who picks a flight based on the wine list? And if you DO pick your flight based on the wine list, then you have bigger problems to deal with.