Untenable rents and low fares give Gen Z a commute by air

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Dispatches
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Commuting by air isn’t new. Those in more senior professional positions have been living in one city and doing frequent business in another on a regular basis since commercial air travel became commonplace. Whether it’s a doctor whose family is in New York with a practice in Florida, a U.S. consultant commuting to a client in Europe, or someone who (before Brexit) lived in Madrid and flew to London, air travel has enabled far more flexible living and working.

But the post-pandemic prevailing economic winds are revealing new trends enabled by remote work, along with soaring rents, and air fares that have been outpaced by inflation. A pair of news stories in rapid succession last week presented independent cases of young people who relied on air travel to commute because it was significantly less expensive than renting housing locally.

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Jon Ostrower
Jon Ostrower is Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, where he leads coverage of the global aerospace and aviation industries. Prior to launching TAC in June 2018, Mr. Ostrower served as Aviation Editor for CNN Worldwide, guiding the network’s global coverage of the business and operations of aviation. Mr. Ostrower joined CNN in 2016 following four and a half years at the Wall Street Journal. Based first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C., he covered Boeing, aviation safety, and the business of global aerospace. Before that, Mr. Ostrower was editor of FlightBlogger for Flightglobal and Flight International Magazine covering the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and other new aircraft programs from 2007 to 2012. He is also an instructor at the University of Southern California in the Viterbi School of Engineering's Aviation Safety and Security program. Mr. Ostrower, a Boston native, graduated from The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication. He is based in Seattle.
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