August 2005

Airplanes, Airports and Peace of Mind

Being the True Story of a Brief but Tedious Journey by
Lucky Bones from the Great Northwest to his Heartland Home

I apologize in advance for even writing about flying in the first place, which only can offer my personal slant on what everyone already knows: air travel is highly unpleasant. In return for the forbearance of my readers, I promise not to visit the subject again unless there are extraordinary circumstances, other than a brief mention now and then. It's an indulgence on my part and a chance to express my feelings about an issue everyone who's ever been on an airplane feels strongly about.

I dislike flying. It's not being up in the air that bothers me, it's everything else that goes with it. Like the airport traffic jams with the curbside chaos, the tedious waits at security, waiting again for the plane to board, sitting at the gate with exhausted wailing toddlers, foul-mouthed impatient mothers, businessmen bellowing into cell phones, harassed gate workers fending off irate passengers. Seemingly endless lines, cranky security personnel, cramped seats with some guy in front of me leaning back to put his greasy ponytail inches from my nose. Seriously, what's to like?

I flew up to Portland last Thursday and have been thinking about this essay over the weekend. In order to be fair I spent some time making a list of everything good about air travel and here it is:

       1) It's faster than driving

I also made notes about what's unpleasant about air travel but when the weight of my notes surpassed my baggage allowance, I knew I'd have to rely on my memory with the current experience to help me along.

PDX to IAH

And so onto the plane, double checking that I haven't left my computer, belt, shoes or phone back at the security gate. When I booked this trip the only seats available on this leg were the dreaded Center Seats, the middle in a row of three. But, internet ace that I am, I've learned a trick. You can check in online 24 hours in advance and when you do there's a chance to change your seat assignment. So here I am in the lap of luxury in the aisle seat just behind the bulkhead, with room to stretch out my size 13 feet and everything. And it's mealtime! Of course the bulkhead seats have the table stored in the armrest and as I unfold it, I find it has a very interesting design:

"This is handy," I think while pondering over the large cutout in the center, "in case I want to pour coffee onto my size 13's." The flight attendant brings me a cheeseburger in a bag like a small potato chip bag along with a salad and a plastic fork and I consider it like Jacques Cousteau used to contemplate the sea on those old TV specials:

O little hamburger in your bag
How can such as I ever understand you?
Will this little pouch of ketchup fulfill your existence?
Do you find joy that you have been blessed by a kind creator with a vestige of pasteurized process American Cheese?

On second thought I have the uneasy feeling that eating this breaded hockey puck is going to be like swallowing a time bomb with a mystery fuse. No telling when it will go off, I'm just pretty sure the results are going to be unpleasant. What the hell, the lavatory is right at my elbow and I like to consider myself a daredevil anyway. For dessert I get a little bag of M&M's labeled "fun size" to remind me how nice they are not to give me a full portion.

And now I discover the purpose of the cutout in the tray! It boosts my self esteem to know I can eat without dumping everything in my lap! What a way to build confidence. For a few moments I consider cutting holes in my kitchen table so I can continue this ego inflating practice. But then I realize I've misunderstood completely as I peer into the first class area and watch a guy unfolding his armrest-based tray. I expect, of course, to see an even bigger cutout. For a moment my heart warms thinking of how the airline is contributing to the nation's mental health. But then I see that he has no cutout at all! He's been cheated, I think smugly. But then I also see his table is twice the size of mine and with a horrible rush comes the realization that my little tray with its artistic cutout is nothing more than a way of putting me in my place. I stare and imagine it emblazoned with the words

Months of therapy stare me in the face as my confidence crumbles. But then I recall that 90% of all first class passengers are there because of upgrades, and to upgrade you have to fly a lot. I don't believe it would be worth it. "Oh you poor sap," I think, "I bet you wish you had my pathetic little tray."

The Connection

I have one good thing to say about the airport in Houston: it isn't Dallas. Changing gates in Dallas puts one in mind of the journey of Louis and Clark. Changing in Houston is only like running a marathon encumbered with (in my case) a briefcase only a little heavier than a sack of concrete and a box containing three bottles of wine and eight pounds of cheese (don't ask).

I will admit that the regional jets they use these days sure beat those old turboprops for the hub-to-small airport jumps. True, they don't offer the same kind of thrill, like the time we took off then returned to Lambert Field in St. Louis because one wheel was stuck down, or watching your cup walk around on the tray table from the vibration. Those were the days, when the ice was scooped out of a cooler and the coffee was poured from a stainless steel thermos. But on the whole I think it's worth the sacrifice in order to have a modern airplane with things such as speed and stability.

The Regional Jet

Ok, I take it back, all that warm mushy stuff about regional jets I wrote back in the terminal. I had forgotten Lucky's First Law of Air Travel: At least once during every trip the airline's Practical Joke Department will give you a Big Surprise. Actually that's not quite true, every traveler has a one-trip-in-a-lifetime exemption, you just don't know when it will be redeemed (at airline discretion). If you've had your exempt trip already I'm sorry, because you don't have anything left to look forward to in the way of air travel. I'm still waiting for mine.

All airlines have a very active Practical Joke Department but nobody laughs. They got me on the last leg of this trip. Back in the Houston terminal I heard my flight called and ran down the escalator to find a huge room packed with people and about twelve "gates", meaning go out and get on a bus. I shouldered my way across the room and was the last one on the bus, so when we were dropped off at the plane I was the first one on board. Or so I thought. The seats here are one on one side of the aisle and two on the other and I'd wisely booked a single--but there was a lady in my seat and I could see that the boarding pass clutched in her hand said 7a, which was my seat number. I managed to stay out of the flood of boarding passengers till I could tackle the flight attendant, who kindly found me the one unoccupied seat on the plane. It's pretty cramped, mostly due to the presence of Beefy Bob in the adjacent seat. What I mean to say is, due to his presence in his seat and about a third of mine. Now as you realize, I'm a big guy. But I'm not big the way you get from years of eating super-duper-ultra-mega sized cheeseburgers with giant orders of fries and a Big Gulp. Every time this guy turns a magazine page a ham-sized arm slaps me in the bicep.  Even though I've retreated to the far side of my seat his hip oozes over and rests against mine, making a hot spot equivalent to wearing goose down jockyshorts. And this is August. To tell the truth I'm feeling a little claustrophobic. Maybe I can close my eyes and think of a mountain stream...

Well, that didn't work. Damn, I can't wait to get into my pickup truck and be done with this trip. Beefy Bob is firing up his Ipod and if he starts tapping his foot I may lose it. It's one of those times when I take the part of my mind that wants to scream and lock it in the closet for a while. To really hone this ability I recommend riding in New York City taxicabs, which I'd rather be doing right now because I could pay off the cabbie and walk.

I'm sure you're wondering how I can write this as Bob keeps elbowing my arm.  I use a palm sized computer with a tiny keyboard, resting it on my leg as I resist the temptation to give a good elbow jab. Patience, son, patience. It's almost over.

Home at Last

It was with great pleasure I climbed into my pickup truck and closed the door, glorying in the isolation. When it's all said and done, the worst thing about air travel is that you can't maintain any personal space, from the time you arrive at one terminal till you finally emerge from the one at your destination. Sitting here at my desk with the cat rubbing around my ankles, I wonder if I'm just too harsh on the experience. But as someone once asked, when was the last time anyone told you about a good airline experiece? I can't recall that anyone ever has.

Random Thoughts

It's ironic that all the airlines are going broke, you'd think one try to get to the top of the customer service heap and attract customers. I know they can't do anything about some of this, it's endemic to the experience. But improvements could certainly be made. On the farm we used to herd the cattle into a funnel-shaped chute to where the vet waited so he could do highly unpleasant things to them. That's the air travel experience today. I keep hearing about "discount carrier Southwest Airlines" and how they have it all together but SW doesn't fly from my regional airport, and back when I used to check their prices I never saw any difference between them and anyone else's price. Maybe I just live in the wrong place. Maybe I just like to bitch. Maybe I'm not the only one who feels this way. I will leave you with the thought that no matter how much I complain, if the choice is between getting on the plane or staying home, you'll find me at the gate with my boarding pass in hand trying hard to resist the temptation to go "Mooooooo..."