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Ten years ago at this time we were worried about Y2K, listening to Christina Aguilera singing “Genie in a Bottle” on our disc-mans, and strolling through airport security with our shoes on and liquids in tow. Much has changed in the past decade, and, as we approach 2010, we face an entirely different travel landscape than we could have imagined at the tail end of 1999.

It never would have occurred to me, for example, that one day, airlines would stop serving peanuts, let alone meals. Peanuts and flights went hand in hand like putting your seat upright and buckling your seatbelt before the plane took off. And airline meals were standard on long flights—and often so bad they became the butt of many jokes. Looking forward to just how bad it would be was part of the fun of the flight experience.

Back then, only those in first-class had experienced the novelty of having a personal TV screen on the seatback in front of them. Today, we’ve got companies like JetBlue and Virgin America that offer those TVs as standard in coach. We bring onboard mini-DVD players and iPhones that play movies in the palms of our hands. Plus, back then, there were no rules about using your cell-phone in flight--hardly anyone had a cell phone, and many seatbacks still sported that clunky old telephone that charged a zillion dollars per minute

Ten years ago, there was still smoking allowed on some flights into and out of the U.S. Can you imagine that now?

Now that a new decade lies before us, what big changes in travel lie ahead?

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member AgedToPerfection: http://www.igougo.com/profile/profile.aspx?MemberID=555700