You know it's been a long year when that's a relief rather than a disappointment.

I'm enjoying a hiatus from flying myself until Jan. 18, at which point it begins again en force, and I have to say at this point it's a relief for me as well.

In January through November, I didn't have a single missed connection, cancelled flight, lost bag, or stranding, and the worst I'd had was a 3 hour mech delay on the way to IAD that was nicely matched by a 3.5 hour mech delay on my onward flight. But in the past 2 weeks I've broken that trend two trips in a row. At least everything went right where it mattered, and the only times I got screwed were still domestic flights with plenty of redundancy.