Unless
you’re a toddler who’s packed all of their toys to take on a trip, or if the
only other option of transport was a Greek ferry, no one enjoys economy. The only reason you do it is because it’s the
quickest way to get from where you are to where you want to be, like standing
in a crowded lift or sleeping with your boss.
And much like both of those experiences, it’ll leave you uncomfortable
and disappointed. So before you next
take-off, I’ve made a few “frequent flyer points” for you to share with your friends or
whichever Uber driver is unlucky enough to be picking you up at your destination.
If my travel experiences were turned into a feature film. |
I’ll
start by addressing the struggle of all tall people, particularly because I’ve been
a member of the ‘2-metre high club’ for several years now. The struggle being that it seems only in the
case of airline travel that tall people are treated like social pariahs. Like we’re Dorothy rocking-up to Munchkinland
and no one’s quite sure how they’re going to deal with us. At any other point in life it’s an advantage
to be tall; you’re the go-to guy for reaching things off high shelves, you’re
the first person picked in sports teams at recess, you can date tall girls who
like to also wear high heels. Only
airlines seem to think being tall is a lifestyle choice we should have to pay
extra to find leg room to cater for. Then, as I’m considering getting a “Tall Lives Matter” t-shirt printed, the guy next
to me who looks like a before photo from Subway has his love handle pouring
over my arm rest, still doesn’t have to kick in extra to pay for the portion of
my seat he’s occupying. It’s not like I
told my parents to conceive me during an excursion to Chernobyl. It’s not like I just splurged on good
nutrition as a child and let my height get out of hand. I bet this is why there are so few survivors
in plane crashes. It’s because we’ve got
cashed-up members of the ‘Lollipop Guild’ sitting in the exit row with their
feet swinging 10cms off the ground, meanwhile I’m stuck back here between ‘Captain
Coughs’ and the ‘Michelin Man’ with so little leg room I’m using my ears as
noise cancelling ear muffs.
I’m
not even comfortable with the fact that to get an exit seat, us “vertically endowed”
individuals have to answer “yes” when a flight attendant asks “are you willing
& able to assist in the unlikely event of an emergency”? I feel like, “No! If I’m paying for leg room, I’d like it
without a side serving of overwhelming responsibility, and if having that leg
room comes with extra responsibility served standard, then refund my
money”. I’m trying to pay extra to
purchase some blood circulation for my legs, not for a portion of the cabin
crew’s workload. Let me put it this way;
I’m not tipping a restaurant waiter to seat me at a good table, only to then
have him tell me that because I have more room than other diners to slide my
chair out quickly, in the event of a fire I’m going to grab a fire extinguisher
and unhinge a door so others can flee the inferno.
On the plus side, all this has inspired me to write a book called the “Qatarma Sutra”. It’s going to be a book with illustrations of uncomfortable seating positions you can somehow sleep in on planes. It’s going to a real page turner for those who are used to sitting in positions too tight for them to be able to turn the pages of their books.
If I had a lollipop for every time I missed out on exit seats because they were already occupied by hobbits or munchkins, I'd have both types of diabetes. |
On the plus side, all this has inspired me to write a book called the “Qatarma Sutra”. It’s going to be a book with illustrations of uncomfortable seating positions you can somehow sleep in on planes. It’s going to a real page turner for those who are used to sitting in positions too tight for them to be able to turn the pages of their books.
Even if you’re so short that you don’t worry about leg room but
you get an altitude nosebleed when you have to stand on the aisle seat to put
your items in the overhead locker, the in-flight experience isn’t a great one. This is because whether your life is
constantly in leg room surplus or leg room deficit, I think we can all agree
that planes have become ‘high altitude hospitals’.
I think it all started to go wrong for airlines when flying became more affordable. Remember the old movies where people would be wearing formal wear and smoking on a flight? Most airlines early on didn’t even have a class system. It was like every commercial aeroplane was basically a combination of socialism meets Mad Men (an idea I would be all for bringing back by the way). Sure tickets were more expensive but that just made sure you flew with a better class of passengers. Tullamarine Airport didn’t look like Dandenong plaza. “Karley” and “Jaysen” from Frankston’s dream of travelling to Europe wasn’t a chance of becoming a reality and Europe would remain free of Bintang singlets. If you look at the evolutionary chart of airline passengers, you’ll see that somehow we went from suits and summer dresses to people wearing Pikachu onesies. Also, if you’re one of those people who seem unaware that their neck cushions can be removed at some point between customs checkpoints at departure and arrival, you are a greater threat to your own safety than any neck cramp or act of terrorism.
A theory of evolution that Darwin himself would admire. |
What
we need to do is change the name of each of the class sections. I’m happy to leave 'first class' as 'first
class', but 'business class' needs to be changed.
If you’re so interested in business, why do you have a TV screen, lounge
chair and a glass of alcohol in your hand at midday on a Tuesday? What is your business, full-time dole payment collector? It should be called “leisure” class. You want to really get some business work
done, let’s swap seats. You’ll have a
seat that only reclines to a 95 degree angle, ensuring you won’t fall asleep
doing that important work of yours, a toilet with a wetter seat than bowl that’ll ensure you cut down on all of those unproductive toilet
breaks. Oh, you’ve also got completely
unhelpful and unfriendly flight attendants at your beck and call to ensure you
rely solely on your own abilities to get your work done.
You either have so much room for activities or no room for appendages. There is no in-between. |
After all of this, how do the airlines reward us for the way
we somehow muster up the resilience and muffle our dignity to put up with this
treatment? They flick us a few frequent
flyer points to keep us quiet for a while like the cheap mistress we are. “Here, take this, go by yourself something
shitty”. I say “shitty” instead of
“pretty” because as we all know, frequent flyer points are brilliant… until you
need to use them. Frequent flyer points
are basically the Indonesian Rupiah of airline currency - just because you see
a lot of zeros before the decimal point, doesn’t mean you’re wealthy. When you understand that, you’ll understand
why your frequent flyer points are more likely to see you walking away with a
key ring and rubber ball than with a flight to the Maldives.
Literally the only difference between these two photos is a few thousand feet, believe it or not. |
So this is for those of you who are reading this as you’re
thinking about booking your next flight, for those of you using the over-priced
economy WiFi on board your current flight or those of you who are up at 2:30am
reading this thanks to the jet lag from a flight you just endured. Or maybe you’re where I would most probably be,
somewhere in between all of these scenarios waiting to board a flight. Every few seconds looking-up intermittently
only to see the way dozens of people are pushing through to board first, in
what I can only assume is a mass synchronised moment of amnesia, where they all
seem to have forgotten that it’s allocated seating! Wherever you’re reading, hopefully you’ve
laughed so much your ears popped and you were hunched over in the brace
position. Most importantly though, I
hope that at least some of the CEOs of major airlines are reading this and
maybe, just maybe, considering making a few changes on our behalf. And if they decide not to, I hope they’re
somewhere sitting back reading this at an uncomfortable angle, grabbing
themselves a thin plastic cup as someone pours them a room temperature undersized
can of anything. Oh, and that the next
time they fly, upon landing they happen to share an Uber with a Frenchman named
“Peter”.
Lol! Your book title is awesome... Very inspired :) Well, I understand your frustration especially regarding the flights. As for the Greek Ferry, I have a totally different experience. I choose the ferry do get the whole holiday in Greece vibe... I've taken it to reach Astypalea, I don't mind the hours at all. Just, enjoy the ride! This summer I stumbled upon this Greek Island Hopping pass and had the chance to see Paros, Naxos, Ios, Mykonos, Santorini, Amorgos and Crete on a budget. Check it out if you like https://www.hostelbay.com/ferries
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