I know of no executive who enjoys business travel. In the most recent move to make your next flight more miserable, you will be chagrined to learn that most of the major airlines are gradually rolling-out new fleet aircraft that are scrunching more seats into an already tight sardine can. One example is the 777 configuration that will now offer 10 seats across versus the historical nine which was already uncomfortable.
However, I do not want to dwell on this angle today. The bigger, and more important news is that commercial travel is very safe. It was recently announced that the year 2017 was the safest on record for airline passengers, without a single commercial jet crashing in passenger service anywhere in the world. This struck me as amazing. With that record, the chances of being involved in a fatal accident at now one in 16 million.
Candidly, I was most surprised that the flawless record includes airlines far and wide across the globe, including some airlines that are a bit sketchy compared to monster fleets here in the USA. So, as you are shoe-horned into your seat from JFK to LAX, you can rest assured that you will reach Los Angeles intact, albeit not very well rested or satisfied that you had an enjoyable flight.