FLYING TONIGHT

I’ve never been the biggest fan of flying. To be honest it drives me to levels of trepidation that can be difficult to explain to people in these days when the process seems to be so utterly ubiquitous. I suppose that it all comes from a strange “first flight” taken when I was eight. A family holiday to Yugoslavia (yes, I am that old) which involved a lot of “circling” as we approached our home airport which made my mother rather tense (although ever since she’s rather loved to travel...) which obviously transmitted itself to me in some small way because, after that holiday, whenever the next one was booked I would spend all the intervening time worrying about the flight out, and the fortnight of the holiday itself worrying about the flight home.

Strangely enough, the most terrifying flight my parents ever experienced, with all its aborted landings, steam coming from the vents and old ladies knocking back the brandies came on the first holiday where I didn’t go with them, so what do I know...?

My own worst landing came many years later on the way home from a tetchy week spent with friends on Kos. As we boarded the plane we were all barely talking, but our own aborted landing in horrendous crosswinds soon got the chat flowing again after the pilot’s rather breathless “Well, I think we’d better have another go at that” came over the loudspeakers. In the end it was the third go that was the charm, but we made it and lived to be friends again another day.

In later years I became rather morbidly aware of air “incidents” (as they euphemistically came to be known) as this was the 1970s when DC10s just couldn't keep themselves in the sky and some of the worst passenger “incidents” happened to occur and got themselves plastered all over the news just after “The Magic Roundabout” had been on. Later still this became a rather bleak “interest” for a while as I would watch all of the documentaries that were shown on the topic and buy quite a few books about it, too, becoming far too knowledgeable about things like “windshear” and “metal fatigue” for my own good.

However, as I’ve got older, I seem to have relaxed a little more about such things because, in order to be able to see anything of the world on my timescale and budget, I have had to “grasp the nettle” somewhat in order to do go to such places, and, by and large, the “fear” is largely kept at bay these days. That and the fact that, in some ways, and on some level, it feels like it might be a kindlier option when compared to the ravages of old age.

But that’s a thought for another day, and I really shouldn’t tempt fate with such thoughts.

As you can see, I still have my superstitious little rituals with regards to any flight that I may have to take of course. All my “I’ll be backs” and mysterious little ticks and walks and phrases that I pull out of my mental carpet bag when the prospect of launching myself up into the wild blue yonder in a silver bird becomes ever more imminent. I used to insist on “viewing” the plane as best I could, although the black residue around the engines that I spotted just before one flight to Barcelona terrified me so much I almost went home. Wasn’t it the actress Lindsay Wagner who once declined to board one plane that subsequently got itself involved in an “incident”, or am I remembering that wrongly? Anyway, giving the plane a good old once over has become less possible in recent times when you spend the entire boarding procedure in air-conditioned tubes. I do miss that short walk across the tarmac with the scent of  jet fuel floating on the breeze...

That said, flying nowadays seems to have generally become a much more mundane pastime than it once was. Checking-in now seems to involve a certain amount of being treated a bit like a convicted criminal arriving at a maximum security institution (which I will accept is wholly necessary and can be tolerable if approached with a certain amount of irony on the part of both parties), and then requires a certain amount of computer literacy to acquire your many boarding passes. After that its mostly a couple of hours of boredom (and, if you’re me, wondering whether this is how you are destined to spend your last few hours on Earth...) mooching around what is basically a shopping mall and trying not to buy so much coffee that your bladder might risk bursting in those inevitable gaps when access to toilet facilities may be denied you.

Zonal boarding and the amount of overhead storage becomes a slight source of angst when you realise that everyone that they’ve already let on has now filled up the storage spaces and you might be left without your tiny little bag of goodies because everyone else has been allowed to flout the regulations and bring along everything they own including the kitchen sink.

In America the sheer size of the country and the scattering of families means than “domestic” flights are so much a part of the ritual of everyday life for a large part of the population that the going to the airport seems rather akin to going to the bus station, and many people seem to load themselves up with a similar amount of bags and carry-ons as if they were getting on a bus, and treat the airliner in much the same way too.

Flying “Economy” does tend to mean “no-frills” too. Whilst there still seems to be an obligation to provide drinks, airline food on these trips which either means risking the snack boxes or salads they sell at inflated rates (and risking that they’ll run out of them before they bring the cart far enough back to get to the actual seat you are in), or else buying the, admittedly rather good, food that can be purchased on the concourse, whilst hoping against all hope that there’s not suddenly some new policy that means you have to stuff it all down your gullet whilst simultaneously stripping off your coat, belt and shoes for another security inspection, and hopping from foot to foot wondering just how soon the pilot is likely to switch off the seatbelt sign and allow you to move about in the cabin.

So I suppose that I must be thankful for the “Transatlantic” phases of my journeys where, despite still being an “Economy” option, there is a relatively high level of pampering that is possibly inversely proportional to the available legroom. Still, if you choose the right airline you will get those fancy little screens on the back of the seat in front of you to watch a few films on (assuming that you don’t happen to sit behind a habitual “recliner”) and so the time will pass.

I still pay very careful attention to the safety procedures even if both those doing the demonstration and those supposed to be watching it seem endlessly bored by the procedure. Oddly enough I’m pretty convinced that I’ve never yet found my life-vest so I do wonder whether, should I ever be unfortunate enough to find myself plummeting towards a mountain, that my last thoughts will be about wondering where it was they actually put it and what it was they said about the straps again...?

Meanwhile, there are, of course, all those other tiny troublesome things to worry about, like the tricky little matter of “viable connections” that the airline assure you mean that you have ample time to get to your next plane, but somehow the combined time-munching of security, immigration control, travelling between terminals and identifying your transfer luggage seem to chew up just enough of that time to find you dashing at full tilt along another concourse hoping that someone else hasn’t been allocated your seat to sit in.

One of the airports I was recently in added a new worry, the tiny issue of “Restroom refurbishment angst” (I’ll gloss over - for the moment - the issue of that euphemistic language option) whereby my all-too-frequent pre-flight bathroom trips were complicated by the nearby one being renovated, and the amount of sinister workmen strolling around carrying lengths of pipe just looked like a Bruce Willis movie backstory in the making. My mind was racing, wondering how many times they are security checked as they go back and forth to their little plumber’s van, and how long it is before complacency sets in and just how much like a bazooka that lengthy section of three inch copper pipe actually looked...

Nowadays when you are finally aboard the aircraft, and have left the gate, the planes themselves seem to make some rather alarming noises (a bit like a dog barking in the basement if you ask me) as the various checks are gone through whilst you are still on the tarmac. Those never sound all that healthy to me. I also had my own little “moment” when I saw someone slip into the toilets before seatbelt buckling time and I really wondered whether the cabin crew had spotted him as they didn’t seem to actually check the “restrooms” much at all on the assumption that they would be empty. Naturally, it turns out that it was one of the crew I actually spotted slipping in there, but you never know. On another flight, once upon a long time ago, we left the gate only for the entire cabin to be plunged into darkness after we were disconnected from the ground electricity supply, which made me immediately wonder what would happen if that occurred at 30,000 feet, so that didn’t turn out to be the calmest of flights either. These are the moments when you really wonder whether to risk being labelled a “troublesome passenger” and start asking those awkward questions so unbeloved of the cabin crew, but I’m so terribly “British” that I’m unlikely to ever do that, so, for as long as I continue to make any successful flights, I suspect that these little moments of mental gymnastics are always likely to mean that it remains something of an ordeal for me.

If it doesn’t kill me, that is...