As someone who flies a lot for work, many of my moments of high blood pressure or ‘Is this really what I want in life?’ introspection take place in airports or on aeroplanes. I cannot – to put it gently – relate to the moronic practitioners of the ‘airport theory’, which involves turning up deliberately late for flights to get an adrenaline rush, and/or to make a sorry living off social media views. No, I’m there in good time, so it shouldn’t be a particularly stressful experience. And yet I’ve come to rather despise flying.
It wasn’t always this way. Admittedly my relationship with flying got off to a slightly tricky start. In my childhood I used to get extreme bouts of restless leg syndrome, which is a part of my medical history I’m happy to share for its comedic value. I used to have to stick my feet in the air and pedal furiously, as if on a Peloton. In hindsight I feel very sorry for those sitting next to me.
But those early days of flying discomfort gave way to a golden age in my twenties when I was old enough to take full advantage of the free booze on board. When working life hits, having a good excuse to do nothing but drink, read fiction and watch films for 15 hours is a very welcome thing.
Yet now – and maybe I’m just becoming more irritable – almost every little thing about flying seems to wind me up. It starts with checking in and providing that ‘Advance Passenger Information’ online. We are cursed with our name: we’re ‘United Kingdom’ on some drop-down lists, but ‘Great Britain’ or even just ‘Britain’ on others. Often the airlines aren’t even internally consistent: we’re ‘GBR’, sandwiched between Gambia and Grenada, for ‘Passport issued by’ and then back as the ‘UK’ for nationality. It’s enough to put anyone off their seven inches of legroom and no in-flight meal.
All this is before we even get to the airport. There greater horrors await. The psychology of the boarding gate must surely have been the subject of a couple of Harvard Business School theses. Why on earth do we insist on being at the front of the queue for boarding, only to then stand for 20 minutes looking enviously at the people sitting with their feet up in the seats we’ve just vacated? Such is our enthusiasm to get on the plane before everyone else the budget airlines now flog ‘priority’ tickets. Surely we would be better off paying for the privilege of being the last on? Waltzing on board just after the safety video has concluded, overpriced coffee in hand? Suckers.
Then there’s the delays. Fine, sometimes things happen. However, call me a pedant, but one of the things that really riles me is when we are apologised to for ‘any inconvenience caused’. Why can’t they apologise for all of the inconvenience caused or just the inconvenience caused, because you can bet your bottom dollar it’s caused inconvenience. Qualifying it is a cop out. That, of course, is if they bother to apologise at all.
Such is our enthusiasm to get on the plane before everyone else the budget airlines now flog ‘priority’ tickets. Surely we would be better off paying for the privilege of being the last on?
On board, little things cause you (or at least me) to become quite enraged. Like the intensely irritating rules around raising your window blind for take-off and landing (another excuse to wake you up). I need to nick one of those ‘do not disturb’ signs from a hotel, attach some string and hang it around my neck while I sleep. I have resorted to morbidly researching online the (apparently grisly) reasons for these various rules and am still just as clueless as I used to be as to the truth of it all. But boy do the cabin crew enforce them with zeal. ‘Cross check!’
The movie you’re watching will constantly be interrupted by in-flight announcements you don’t need to hear. In any case, the headphones are unlikely to be working properly – one ear if you’re lucky. Another pet hate is the internal crew communications announced to the entire plane. ‘Flight attendants, prepare doors for departure.’ Can’t they get earpieces or important-looking walkie talkies to chat among themselves?
I look for little things to make the experience bearable. I sometimes resort to retail therapy from that funny shopping catalogue in the seat pocket, buying ludicrous things I would never normally consider. Occasionally there are other small wins, like getting a mini bottle of Tabasco with your tomato juice or bagging an extra bread roll with supper.
In fact, airline food is one thing I have an inexplicable guilty pleasure for. Something hot and salty when you’re at your lowest ebb. Those in business class are treated to more elaborate menu descriptions: ‘beef bourguignon with garlic pommes purée’ or ‘salmon en croute with a lemon hollandaise’. In economy it’s reduced to ‘meat or fish’, with requests for further detail met with incomprehension or outright irritation. But in some ways I admire it. Four waiters doing maybe 400 covers. Bloody efficient.
There are plenty of other things that infuriate me. The joys of going through security, now with the new ‘Don’t shoot!’ body scanners. The science of seat selection. I could go on. Flying is a genre unto itself.
But that’s a good starter for ten. A regular column to vent flying frustrations would be nice, though. As I pen this among the clouds, having snatched a few hours’ sleep and with a belly full of bread roll and plonk, ‘Sky High Life’ has a good ring to it…
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