TRAVELING BY AIR? OUCH!
I recently endured a long, uncomfortable round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Europe, but along the way I realized how the airline industry has managed to make flying affordable for the masses of people like me. I return for lower fees, they torture you.
Airlines cram their passengers into uncomfortable little seats like so many human sardines, and they make you pay for your cheap seat with hours of pain, annoyance, and discomfort.
I’m an economy class traveler. Like many others, I travel light with one suitcase and a handbag. I won’t pay for the outrageously expensive first-class seats so I endure seats which are notoriously uncomfortable even for much smaller people.
I’m more or less an average sized man, 5–11, 175 pounds or so. Even with my fairly average legs, there is almost zero leg room in these tiny little airline seats and of course the person ahead of you may also put a bag under the seat, taking up more of your leg room. Ouch!
I paid extra for an aisle seat. Although other passengers do occasionally uproot me to get to the bathroom, I prefer an aisle seat because I think I might have a tiny bit more leg room. The seats I tried to make myself comfortable in seemed to have been designed by a sadistic engineer who strove to make them fiendishly, irritatingly uncomfortable
Unfortunately, the aisles in modern airplanes are almost as narrow as the seats. In my aisle seat, if my elbow, hand, or foot happened to be extended out into the aisle even a few inches, the metal drink and dinner carts flying up the aisle happily clipped me. Ouch! The same accursed engineer who designed my seat likely configured the tiny little aisles between rows of seats.
An airline passenger needs the agility and balance of a tightrope walker to negotiate these little aisles without stabilizing him or herself with both hands on the way to the tiny little bathrooms which do not contain a normal toilet.
Pee standing up if you can, airline traveler…if you’re a man, prop yourself against the low angular plastic ceiling and dare to balance yourself over the metal toilet. Use a little stinky, chemically processed blue-green water to wash your hands if you dare, and then rock and foll your way back to your cramped little seat!
Jetliner bathrooms are not alone in using an extremely thin, flimsy type of toilet paper. A little bit wider than a piece of scotch tape, this ultra-thin toilet paper seemed to be in every stall in every airport along the way. Where do they get this stuff? Does the airline industry believe our rear ends mysteriously shrink when we fly? Ouch! Why not use regular toilet paper? Oh, I get it, they’re saving money. Is there no end to the airlines’ saving money at the expense of our comfort?
As my flights began, I observed the usual announcements about emergency evacuation procedures, oxygen masks, and life vests on a screen in front of my face. Then, to my surprise, several advertisements were more or less crammed down my throat. Ouch! I didn’t want to watch this stuff. Although I tried, I couldn’t darken the screen at all.
In-flight movies were free on my flights (Canadian Airways and United), but the airlines force-fed me several more advertisements I didn’t want to see before they finally let me see the movie.
Personally, I’ve had it up to here with ads everywhere I turn. Too many ads, Mr. Airline Industry! Are we getting greedy? While I’m on vacation, trying to relax, this traveler doesn’t want to see any ads at all!
GOODBYE, JOY OF EATING…
The joy of eating becomes an annoying joyless experience in mid-air.
Occasionally, an employee offers passengers a beverage in a paper-thin clear plastic cup (easily knocked over) I found the cup must be balanced on the tray or held tightly in hand to avoid spillage on your very proximate neighbor. Coffee in a paper cup with a paper wrapper around it presents a similar balancing problem.
Liquid refreshments are often accompanied by a hard-to-open plastic bag of chips, nuts or some such snack, which is sometimes served alone. Ouch! I didn’t bring a pocket knife, which probably wouldn’t be permitted anyway. Finally, to my annoyance, I had to use my teeth.
These days, I found, no food is served on airplanes which is not tightly sealed or wrapped in plastic and it’s delivered on a plastic tray even smaller than the one built into the seat ahead that you pull down to hold it.
And try to eat those meals! Ouch! Another balancing act!
When your meal arrives, each food item is separately wrapped in a quivering bow of cellophane or plastic accompanied by drinks served in flimsy plastic glasses.
Your tray is full. Now try to eat.
Ouch! Don’t knock that teetering drink over! Watch your elbows! Watch your neighbors’ elbows! Eating a meal on an airliner is an exercise in agility and balancing. Go ahead, try to unwrap each item you want to eat without knocking over your drink or some other item on that little tray. It’s not easy, is it?
A couple of my meals began with a very tiny green salad served in a flimsy clear plastic box. I was grateful to get salad, but the container was hard to open. The dressing came in a separate hard-to-open packet that had to be carefully opened with my teeth while balancing everything else on that little tray just above my knees.
When I finished my tiny little salad, where to put the flimsy little plastic box, while I eat the rest of my meal? Suck it up, airline traveler! Don’t knock that little box off the tray, you’ll never be able to bend down and pick it up!
And the meals! Cellophane-wrapped white bread or a cold crumbly biscuit, a tiny tub of frozen butter I couldn’t cut or spread, a plastic tub containing a meat or vegetable or pasta dish covered by a skin of plastic, followed by another plastic container full of some sort of dessert?
And now you’re trying to eat?
Rip the thin plastic top off the somewhat warm pasta, but don’t get to macho about removing the sticky film, or you may spill your food. You might knock over your beverage. Or worse. You did? Ouch!
But wait … no place to put the sticky piece of plastic you just removed, the wrapper that’s sticking to your hand? And you’ve already used that tiny little napkin? Tough luck, air traveler. Watch your elbows!
Where to put all those food wrappers as they pile up while you’re enjoying your meal? Good luck, traveler!
As you begin to eat, just try to keep all the wrappers you accumulate balanced on that tiny little plastic tray while you unwrap the eating utensils. You must hold onto your little mountain of cellophane and food-flecked plastic trash until the stewards or stewardesses swing by with their carts and bulging trash bags, banging into your foot with their cart and collecting trash.
Happy flying, traveler! Ouch!
David Drum is a writer based in Los Angeles.