Flying is Still Pretty Awesome
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Waiting can be the most unpleasant part.
I just finished a marathon of flying. In the last couple months, I’ve gone to Philadelphia, Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix, Anaheim, and Moline for work. In addition, just a couple days after my latest west coast business trip, we hauled my entire family to Hawaii for vacation. During this time, I’ve had long layovers at HNL, ORD, MSP, ATL, LAX, SLC, and LGA. And for the most part, I actually enjoyed it.
Most of you now think I’m insane. It’s fashionable to bitch and moan about airlines, airports, and the TSA. And most of this is well deserved.
Domestic airlines are terrible. Their idea of customer service has sunk ever lower into the blue liquid of airplane toilets. Gate agents are often crabby and unhelpful (mostly due to problems created by their employers), and flight crews are frighteningly underpaid. Domestic airports are also terrible, for the most part. Due to TSA rules we can’t bring water in, so there’s a new cottage industry charging $5 for 16 oz of bottled water. The wifi never works and the chairs are uncomfortable. And then there’s security. The TSA’s absurd attempts at security theatre are well documented, so I won’t go into them here.
And yet, I still get a little excited as I drive up to the airport. Bear with me here.
Part of it is that I think planes are, for lack of a better word, “neat.” We lowly primates have actually figured out how to fly regular people, including the very young and very old, safely around the planet at Mach 0.8. See? Neat.
I’ll let you in on a secret. My business travel profile says I prefer an aisle seat, but that’s a little white lie. I feel like it’s a “grown up” thing to request an aisle, but secretly, the kid in me wants the window. Once the plane pushes back from the gate I perk up a little, and crane my neck to look outside. One of my favorite parts of the taxi is the turn toward the runway where I can see the queue of planes waiting for takeoff. I always smile a little when I see the variety, sometimes a tiny ERJ-135 lined up in front of a massive A330, or if you’re lucky, a majestic 747. When we make the final turn, and the engines spool up for takeoff, and we start hurtling down the runway, my inner six year old comes out. As the nose comes up, and we ascend into the sky, I look down and watch the “toy” cars and the streetscape recede into the distance, and I feel as though I’m off on an adventure. Even if that adventure is probably going to take place in Moline.
I also spend a lot of time looking out the window once I’m in the air. I’ve seen some pretty amazing things from 35,000 feet. Once, on an overnight flight to London, we flew above a thunderstorm over the North Atlantic. Watching the lightning crackle between the purple clouds below you is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. On a trip from London to Paris, the sky was totally cloudless, and over the English Channel I could see the southern coast of England and the northern coast of France, and it looked exactly like a map outline. (And Normandy from the air looks just like central Illinois.) I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon from the ground, but it’s pretty grand from the air! The Rockies are, literally, awesome. On my recent trip to Hawaii, flying from Kauai to Honolulu I saw the remote Kaena Point, where my husband and I had hiked just a few days prior. Flying into New York, I like seeing how the Pennsylvania farmland gradually gives way to the snarl of north Jersey traffic and the concrete jungle. Even when it’s an overcast day, I love breaking through to the bright sunshine, and seeing an ocean of fluffy white clouds beneath me.
Kaena Point is no Moline
Granted, some of my enthusiasm is just nostalgia. I had a lot of fun on planes as a kid. I remember having playing cards with the Eastern Airlines logo, back when airlines still gave out playing cards (and Eastern Airlines still existed). My older sister taught me to play Crazy 8’s with those cards. When the beverage cart came, for some reason, I always ordered ginger ale. I still associate ginger ale with airplanes. The first time I had Diet Coke was a sip from my mother on a plane, right after it came out in the early 1980’s. I remember not liking it. Back then, going to India to see relatives was a bit of a project. (I guess it still is, somewhat.) Since there were no non-stops, we always had to stop in Europe, and then fly from Europe to India. Before modern improvements in technology, you needed a big plane like a DC-10 to make a LHR-BOM trip, but there weren’t all that many people on them. So as kids, we could run around the mostly empty back of the plane (in the smoking section!) and not feel so confined. You could also push up all the armrests in a center row, and take a little nap.
So yeah, I kind of like being in the air. But airports, they don’t have any redeeming qualities, do they? Well, domestic terminals, not so much. The intercoms are so fuzzy they sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. And I don’t care how many airport restaurants Wolfgang Puck opens, the food is always uninspiring. Plus, the armrests don’t go up on the seats, which is an extra thumb in the eye of a stranded passenger hoping to get some rest.
But, in a nice big busy airport like ATL or LAX or even ORD, there is fun to be had. I like to wander over to the international terminals and watch people and planes. It’s fun to see the big jumbo jets lined up, each with the paint of a different national carrier. Aer Lingus, Air India, JAL, Qantas, Emirates, and so forth. They all show national pride in their carefully designed liveries, and they remind me that 12 hours in the air can get me almost anywhere in the world. That is mind boggling. In my car, 12 hours would get me to Minneapolis. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Minneapolis.)
It’s also fun to people watch, in both domestic and international terminals. Everyone is coming from somewhere, or going to somewhere. Business travelers, looking blasé or harried, whiz by on their way to some conference in Vegas, or maybe a sales call to Anytown, USA. Little kids experience a moving sidewalk for the first time, and run in circles laughing their butts off (mine did). Some brave women zip through the terminal on 6 inch spike heels. I assume they’re all fashion executives, just back from Milan. Sometimes you see happy young couples heading off for their honeymoons, and then, like a ten-year flash-forward, you spot a bedraggled Mom and Dad, hauling a stroller, 2 car seats, and 3 rugrats home from Florida. Some people are happy to be going wherever they’re going, some are just glad to be home, and some are upset for whatever reason, but everyone has a story. It’s a reminder that life is full of possibility, and that the world is smaller than it has ever been.
So yes, it’s a damn shame that various economic and geopolitical forces have conspired to make air travel far less glamorous and fun than it was in the past. But if you go in with the right attitude and outlook, you too might catch a thunderstorm out the window from 6 miles up, on your way to Bangkok, or possibly Moline.
Tina S
Tina is a sometime contributor to SeedSing and occasional guest on the X Millennial Man Podcast. She is currently working on a photo series of the best food courts in all of the world's airports. There is not a lot of variety. We made a twitter for Tina, go follow her @TinaSeedsing.