Traveling long distance for international destinations is always a mixed physical and emotional experience.
There’s the rush of anticipation for new sites, new people, new explorations.
There is the tedium of check-in, the verifying, and reverifying, and one last time verifying of passports and visas.
There is the security experience.
The dreaded moment your carryon comes out of the Star-Trek like x-ray machine, pauses at the point where it will either come straight to you or make that frustrating shift onto the “more examination” line already backed up like the Washington Bridge at 8:00 A.M.
If it does, your gleefully grab it and flee.
If not, well, your heart sinks as it moves over to be examined.
There, the one TSA agent assigned, likely the junior agent forced to actually do something beside standing and staring as you contort into whatever the latest pose is for the walk-thru body scanner, will move in deliberate slow motion, stop at a bag, put on a new set of gloves like they are preparing for surgery, lift the bag, perform a toddler’s version of a right face, right face, right face instead of one left face, repeat the pace back to the examination area and say to the person anxiously leaning over the counter,
“Is this your bag?”
I’ve been tempted to say, “ No, but I had to cancel my Paramount + subscription because it was too expensive and this is the closest thing to it I can watch.” I didn’t, but I considered it.
Then, off to the gate where you spend the next few hours trying to translate the airport announcements from their original Klingon into something that relates to your flight and gate.
If you do manage to arrive at the right gate, you then sweat the dreaded gate-change announcement.
“We apologize, but British Air Flight Grzzzxdfv 6 (of course your fight ends in 6,) will no longer depart from gate A1, concourse B, Level 5 and will now depart from gate Z125, Concourse E, Level -2. Boarding will begin…Now! “
Don’t snicker, Heathrow has levels -1 and -2, apparently there really are Gates to Hell.
Then, after journeying between five gates in two terminals, comforted by the thought you are at the right gate, the next level of torment commences.
This is known as the, “We will be boarding by group numbers which can be found on your boarding pass, right below your seat number (in the smeared, unreadable ink,) please stay clear of the gate until your group is called,” moment.
This is immediately followed by a panicked rush by every passenger congregating at the gate, trying to appear nonchalant, as they time their maneuver into what they hope is the tail end of the group before theirs and, this is the critical part, the announcement for their group will come before they get to the agent so they can pretend they were actually not congregating at the gate like every other passenger in the history of passengers.
And while I am on the boarding process, haven’t they taken this frequent flyer stuff to ridiculous levels?
There’s Platinum, Platinum Plus, Diamond, Diamond Plus, Working its way through the rest of the precious metals, semi-precious jewels, then groups 0-9. Really? Do you think that people pay more for the early boarding privileges calling them Diamond Plus Select makes them feel better?
Diamond Plus sounds like politically correct name for big butts. And the lineup often reinforces this observation.
A related joyful experience is when a person, usually right in front of me, approaches the gate without their boarding pass or passport. They ignore the agent’s plea to step aside, drop a bag big enough to hold a small passenger plane (a topic for another day) then, after ripping their bag apart, produces the boarding pass for a different flight!!. You would think in order to fly one should have a basic understanding of geography. A flight to Nairobi, Kenya is unlikely to be routed through Sydney, Australia. Rant over, aside over.
Here is another favorite. Okay, rant, who am I kidding? Although not unique to British Air, it comes from my experience of working at Southwest Airlines but applies to all airlines.
Because of what I saw with my own eyes, I came to believe in miracles.
The first call is, of course, for people requiring more time to board the plane, some in wheelchairs. The record in Fort Myers where I worked for a little over a year was thirty plus wheelchairs going on a single flight.
Now here’s the miracle part. Every flight lists the number of wheelchairs boarded so the receiving airport can have adequate staff to help with deplaning. Wait for it, thirty chairs go on, but only two or three come off.
It’s a miracle. The Miracle of the Jetway. The lame have been healed. Hallelujah! Can I get an Amen?
But I digress. Of course, what else can I do at 39,000 feet over Europe, uncomfortably close to Russian missile range, as we make our way to Nairobi? You’d think they’d just go southeast, take a slight left over Morocco and head over to eastern Africa, but no we have to take this big juicy plane full of Brits and Americans and dangle it in front of Putin and some Jihadi lunatics.
I know, I know, they have to aim (bad choice of words) where Nairobi will be when we land due to the rotation of the earth. Just in case, I’m keeping the window shade down to absorb the shrapnel and blast cone.
Back to British Air and the joys of travel. Now we are boarding. We’ve navigated check-in, security, and the gate stampede and now we make our way to the coach seats. This is where the 8K comes in. We contacted British Air once a week up to the day before departure to see about upgrading.
Not to first class, mind you, we’d settle for Premium Economy (which sounds like an oxymoron like Jumbo Shrimp, or Military Intelligence) but not at the princely sum of eight-thousand dollars…EACH, which was our only option.
While I value my comfort, I don’t value it quite that much.
We settled for our Economy Economy. But I noticed a couple of things on the way back to the tail section. Most of the people in First and Business class would not make eye contact. I don’t think it was guilt, I think it was like we were lepers being taken to banishment on foreign soil and they feared contamination.
I hope a lion eats them in the Serengeti and I get a picture. Better yet, a full video complete with the tearing of flesh, squirting arterial blood, breaking of bones, and the screams of their traveling companions as they wonder if they can get a refund on the one no-longer-necessary return ticket.
I can dream, can’t I. Remember where I am as I write this. Besides, I am not without compassion. I’d give ‘em fifty bucks for it. Okay, after sitting 15 hours in an economy economy seat with one inch padding on my bony ass, my compassion is drained.
Back to my brief time in First Class and Business Class. I also noticed the seatbelts were different.
Our Economy Economy seats had the regular belts the security briefing spends an inordinate amount of time explaining how to latch and unlatch (perhaps you shouldn’t be allowed out alone if you need a lesson in this, but I digress once again) while the upper class seats had the waist AND cross chest belt.
I suppose it makes sense. If an airline is getting the equivalent of a year’s tuition at a junior college for a seat on a plane, you want make damn sure they survive any unanticipated water landing, unexpected loss of pressure (if you do anticipate that, you probably should not fly,) or stray Russian missile.
There will always be scores of the great unwashed to fill in the Economy Economy.
Okay, that’s all for now. I have to dig through my change to find a Euro to use the lavatory…just kidding that seat is free and it’s bigger and more comfortable than the one I bought.
Next time, How Do the Proportionally Challenged Fit in Airport Lavatories? They must enter a new dimension like Alice in Wonderland. I know, I know, insensitive of me. What are you gonna do, make me fly Economy Economy Economy?
Leave a Reply