Flying

I’m not afraid of flying, but I am concerned about the “Murphy’s Law” things which can and do go wrong when traveling by air.  Neither I, nor anyone I’ve ever known, have been in a plane crash, so what passes for “horror stories” will fall short of fatalities: see below.

 January 1979.  We flew to Paris for the first time, moving there.  I was 10 years old, and thrilled to be flying.  So much so, that I gave zero thought to this whole concept of actually living in France.  Ok, the flight’s over, now let’s go back.  What?  We’re staying here?  Crap.

 January 1987.  I was flying back from Paris to Maryland, due to arrive at Dulles and continue my spring semester of freshman year at UMCP.  With 2 hours of a 9 hour flight left, the plane was on its way to IAD (Dulles) when the captain came on the intercom and announced that, due a massive blizzard hitting the entire East Coast, the flight would be diverted to Detroit.  WTF?  I was flying alone and nothing like this had ever happened to me before.  I knew no one in Detroit.

            I hanged tight, and the airline (I forget which one) booked me on the first flight out the next morning (no extra charge) and got me a hotel in Ann Arbor for the night (no charge).  I could barely sleep.  By 2 p.m. the next day, though, I was at Dulles, phoning my Dad (who had been worried and calling everyone in the airline industry) and my buddy Phil, who was the one due to pick me up.  I ended up spending the weekend with his family in Sterling, finally arriving in College Park on Sunday night.

 Romania via London.  This had an insane layover in Heathrow on the way back.  I was literally broke, so I couldn’t go into London, although the Underground does go to the airport.  The flight came in from Bucharest at 5 p.m. London time, but the flight I was booked on for IAD didn’t leave until the following day at 1 p.m. London time, meaning a hellacious 17 hour layover.  I was able to sleep in the “quiet lounge” until 1 a.m., at which point they chased everyone out of that terminal, made us go through immigration, bused us over to the main (very small) terminal.  This one had benches with armrests for each seat, meaning you couldn’t stretch out on them to sleep. I put chairs together from the bar and slept there until 6 a.m., at which time the departure terminal reopened and I could continue my hibernation in the quiet lounge.  The flight from London to Dulles was 8 hours, normally a long flight but now relatively short compared to the layover.  I was like “Viktor Navorksi”.

 L.A. via Dallas.  On this recent trip, my outgoing flight was through Dallas.  As the plane approached Dallas, the captain came on with bad news: “we’re all stacked up and don’t have the fuel to continue as long as they’re asking, so we have to stop in Oklahoma City”.  We stayed on the runway for 30 minutes, refueled (didn’t even get off the plane) and were in Dallas about 2 hours late.  My connecting flight to L.A. had already left AND was the last flight to L.A. from Dallas that night.  Although they immediately booked me on the next flight out the next morning, I had to stay in Dallas overnight.  I suspected, and I was right: the airline treatment of 1987 would not be repeated in 2010, so I had to pay (a reduced rate) for the hotel.

 Aisle vs. Window.  I prefer aisle seats, particularly for overnight flights where there is nothing to see out the window.  Coach is bad enough, but having the window seat is downright claustrophobic.  I’ll gladly get up out of the seat to allow the window seat passenger access to the bathroom.

 Fellow passengers.  For some reason I’m almost always put next to a guy.  On rare occasions the airline will relent and give me a female companion.  On the way to Dallas recently, that female passenger was a large Texan girl of limited intellect.  On the trip to L.A. the next day, it was a black woman who was determined to sleep throughout the entire 3 hour flight without saying a word.  Then there are the crying babies: on an overnight trip to Romania, there were no less than 3 crying babies who took turns to annoy everyone throughout the entire flight, not just during those annoying pressure changes on takeoff and landing.

 Movies.  Most of the movies are fairly dull and inoffensive, and rarely films I’d really care to see on my own, with a few exceptions.  When “Back to the Future” came out in 1985, I was living in Paris and could not see it in the US.  By the time our home leave came around in 1986, it was well out of US theaters.  My friend Sean and I had tried to see it in Paris, but the line was around the block, so we said “screw it”.  So I was SOL trying to see this film….until….we flew back to the US in July 1986, and the in-flight movie was, you guessed it.  Woohoo!  Sometimes I’ll pay some attention to the film and end up renting it back in the US to fully digest it, or if it’s a really good film, pay full attention to it with the earphones.  “The Island” was pretty damn cool.

 Sleeping.  I cannot sleep on the plane.  Even on an overnight flight, something about having to keep roughly sitting position just doesn’t do it for me; I cannot get into a comfortable position.  Add to that the rumbling, vibration, and turbulence, and I get at most 1 hour of sleep on an overnight flight.

 Upgrades.  I think we managed to upgrade to first class ONCE, thanks to my dad’s connections in the airline industry – he worked for USTTA and seemed to know everyone at every airport short of actually working for an airline.  For a 1 hour flight, coach is no problem.  Even for an overnight flight, in a middle or window seat, I can endure the inconvenience.  Coach seats are expensive enough. 

            I’ve never been on the Corcorde, which is now retired, so I lost my chance.  The entire plane was first class, $8000 a ticket. 

 Airline Magazines.  These bore me to tears.  99% of the articles are targeted at white collar businessmen, as are the ads.  I am almost never flying on business.  The ads are often for obscenely expensive hotels I could never hope to afford.  About the only items of interest are the maps in the back with the flight routes.   The SkyMall catalog is a total ripoff.  Who buys this shit?

 Food & Refreshments.  The days of good treatment and free stuff are long gone.  By now I expect the flight staff to come down the aisle bumming gas money from us.  The dinners on long flights are OK, I usually just eat the “chicken” or “meat” type item and the bun, and ignore the green beans.  I love the little pretzel and peanut bags, but I’ve noticed they’re rare on even short flights these days.  About the only thing free these days are soft drinks, so I’ll drink those down. 

 Airports.  If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.  They all look pretty similar inside, so I don’t brag that I’ve been to a city if I’ve never left its airport.  What I really can’t stand are the ones with completely separate terminals so you have to take a shuttle or train from one to the other.  L.A., Denver, and Heathrow are like that.  The “stalks on a tree” format, simply requiring you to return to a central hub, works better for me – e.g. Charlotte. 

    Most airports are located in remote locations far away from anything interesting, which means you really have to get there early to make sure you get there on time and don’t miss your flight stuck in traffic somewhere.  Exceptions:  Phoenix’s airport is right in downtown Phoenix, and Las Vegas – the city seems to have grown south from its historic district down to surround the airport itself.  The Mandalay Bay, Luxor and Excalibur are right across the road from the runways, you can look down on the airport itself from your hotel room.  You could practically WALK to the airport.  Las Vegas also has slot machines throughout the terminal.  I mean, are you so hard up for gambling that you either can’t wait to get to your casino/hotel or can’t resist a few pulls on the arm before you leave? 

    If there was one good thing about Heathrow was its excellent stores.  I snagged a whole tin of Cadbury Flake and had chips & a Strongbow, with my last few coins.  They had a few stores selling brand new soccer jerseys, but I had the ones I wanted already at that time and was broke anyway. 

    Otopeni in Bucharest was very small, which is odd because it’s THE main international airport for not only Bucharest itself but for Romania as a country.  It used to be larger, but Ceaucescu maintained that “Romanians have no legitimate need to leave the country” so he deliberately reduced it. 

 Stairwells.  Dulles Airport still has many of those mobile lounges.  In most cases, especially in the US, the gates have those boxy passageways which link up to the airplane.  When I went to the USSR in March 1983, the planes were met on the runway by those ancient outdoor stairwells, the ones you see the Beatles walk down on in the rain in Australia and other parts of the world.  You’re met a few yards away by a shuttle bus which takes you into the airport.

    What was funny was traveling back to the US on home leave in the summer.  Paris summer weather is very mild; it gets “hot” maybe a few days out of the whole summer, so many people in Europe don’t even have air conditioning, which causes problems when they do have a legitimate heat wave.  We’d get off the plane at Dulles, and even in the gateway we could feel the heat.  Leave the air conditioned terminal building and you’re hit with a heat wave like a microwave oven.  My mom would say, “uh uh, I’m not going anywhere until the hotel shuttle gets here.” 

    The difference is even more dramatic if you fly to Rio de Janeiro in January.  You’re escaping frigid cold and snow at Dulles, then at GIG you’re hit with the Brazilian summer.  And when you return, you’re leaving Rio’s heat and beaches and tan, to face more arctic air (maybe even snow) at Dulles.  The first time I went to Rio, though, was in June, which is winter there.  Rio’s winters are so mild, though, it was hardly much of a difference.                                                 

 Nonstop/layovers.  I’ve already mentioned my horror story in Dallas.  If the nonstop flight wasn’t so much more expensive than the one-stop flight I’d gladly take it.  The delays are so unpredictable that you have to cushion your itinerary with a 3 hour layover; 30 minutes to an hour seems to be asking for trouble – and is.  But that 3 hour cushion adds even more time to the length of the whole flight.  When I came back from Denver via Newark, the flight was so late leaving Denver that I literally had to run through the Newark airport to make my connecting flight to DC.  At the other extreme, I couldn’t switch to a Friday night flight from Heathrow coming back from Bucharest (I tried).

 Jet Lag.  Flying eastbound, the time difference gets added on.  You leave Dulles at 6 p.m. at night, arrive in Paris at 8 a.m….except that to your body, it’s 2 a.m.  Everyone else in Paris is waking up for the day, and you’re dead tired.  The first time we flew (January ’79), we took a nap at 9 a.m. and woke up at …. 6 p.m.  Which felt like noon our time.  So when midnight came around, we felt like it was 6 p.m.  Having slept the whole day, of course we weren’t tired at midnight.  It took until 6 a.m. to fall asleep.  D’oh!   The best solution is to simply stay awake all day and go to bed at the normal hour.  When I visited my friend Jean for his wedding in July 1996, I did that and had ZERO jet lag. 

    Flying westbound is strange: the flight time and time difference cancel each other out.   But the usual result is that you wake up at 5 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep, because your body thinks it’s noon.  But by the next night you’re pretty much OK.

    Flying north-south, no matter how long the flight, is not a problem.  Five trips to Brazil, no jet lag at all.  Depending on the time of year, the time difference is either 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours, most often 2 hours, which is too small to make a difference. 

 Clubs & Lounges.  Back when we traveled as a family, my father would also sometimes get us access to the TWA, Pan Am, or whatever airlines lounges.  These are quiet places where you can read that day’s newspaper, sit down, relax, and they bring you soft drinks, coffee, and even croissants at no charge.  Normally my deal is I go to a bar and buy one overpriced beer and watch the TV there.  Mr. Middle Class.   

 Gates of Babylon.   In the old days – meaning before 9/11 – we used to be able to go all the way to the gates even if we weren’t the ones actually flying, both to “see someone off” and when we were picking someone up.  The drama of seeing someone go through the gate into the plane, or see someone come out, was incredible, especially if we haven’t seen them in some time.  This didn’t apply to international arrivals, as the returning passengers had to go through immigration and customs (without any interference from locals) before emerging; but it did apply to international departures. 

   Now, of course we have this TSA BS to deal with.  Every time I go to the airport I wonder what some TSA person is going to confiscate: a fifth of absinthe, a tube of toothpaste that’s too big, a body spray.  And take off our shoes.  None of this was necessary back before 9/11.  Nelson Demille bitched about this in Wildfire, through the character Bain Maddox.  Whenever I have to deal with this security BS at the airport, I think, “damn those stupid terrorists.  They have no legitimate grievances which justify the huge headaches and hassles we have to go through because of their asshole stunts.  And the stupid liberals, even RON PAUL!!, bend over and grab their ankles to pacify and apologize for these sick bozos.”  Anyone who makes any apology or defense of the Islamo-fascists, as Hitchens loves to call them, deserves a special ultra-high-harassment lane at the airport, with full cavity searches, confiscation of the most harmless and innocent items (e.g. gifts for loved ones), and sufficient delays to guarantee they miss their flights. 

 Airplane!  I zone out on the “airline disaster films” and defer to this one, which is not only a terrific parody of all those films, but a damn funny film in its own right.  In fact, the comedy is a remarkable throwback to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, all the slapstick films of the silent era, somehow resurrected decades later in this “talkie” and updated for modern audiences.  The sequel wasn’t as good, but it was still funny.  Every now and then I see an old Leslie Nielsen film in which he’s playing a serious role, and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for his punchlines.  “And stop calling me Shirley.”