hmm just going to edit an in-progress post when came across this stuck in drafts....
.....
I am trying to be this smiley friendly easy digestible person that everyone tells me I should be. (I remember being told there was no place for cynicism in a team I was interviewing to join!!!)
So lets start on 5 things I love about flying*....
1) celebrity sightings... I met Nicky Butt in an airport lounge, and sat next to the manager of the Spanish National Equestrian team on a plane once.
2) Impromptu Sleeping.. Maybe as a result of my nocturnal sleep problems, I have a wonderful ability to sleep whenever I need to. So, much to my co-traveler's annoyance, I am able to drop off before the safety briefing, perk up just in time for the trolley service, and then drift off before the descent into whereever.
3) Knowing what's going on.. I quite enjoy being one of the few people who seem to actually know what the steps are to getting yourself on the plane, whilst everyone else is bimbling around (but see later for the flip). Knowing where your gate is, is a good start, knowing when you should be there helps too.
4) Now I am starting to struggle... Having necessary down time, this could be accused of being a duplicate of 2) but, its all the time that the airline require you to spend at the airport whilst they sort their sh*t out. Its great for catching up on reading or eating an overpriced and undercooked meal (to be fair, the airport restaurants seem to be improving)
5) The carpets? the.... no I'm not sure I can stretch to thing of a 5th thing, turning out the lights for taking off and landing in the hours of darkness, thats good, really cold red wine? sometimes that is surprisingly good (surprisingly because your expectations are so, so low). Online checkin, loved this when I first encountered it, now its, taken for granted. Pretty airstewardesses(es) rarer and rarer to find, but KLM have a good crop, and a couple of years ago there was a GREAT BMI lady who could have just stepped out of Vogue (alright FHM). Did I mention her here before? a quick recap on my posts indicates not, she was called something brilliant like Tina Pretty, or something. She was FINE. Wonder where she is now?
RIGHT just Primal Tweet Therapied my way back to sanity.
SO there's plenty about flying that I love, but there are one or two things that are not quite as good as they could be, mind if I indulge...
1) Check In Queues, not content with raping your wallet the airlines have decided it would be great to start the airport experience off by cutting the number of staff down to zero (ok a half) and making everyone who needs to do those inconveniently expensive things like check a bag or make an enquiry. There is a chance to avoid these by only having handluggage and opting for online check-in (which some of the budget airlines will only charge you a few pounds extra for), but remember to put all you minuscule toiletries in a freezer bag and allow some idiot at the airport probe through (I'm not onto security queue yet).
So if you want the old fashioned service, BE PREPARED TO WAIT and thats because of
2) IDIOT Passengers, who don't know what the f**k they are doing, seem to have been born aged 30-60 something in the airport, with no experience of the world or common sense at all.. witness the woman who walked onto my plane** to row 20 and then said "where is row 1?", well is it likely to be in the middle of the plane, I mean is it? really? if you were allocating row number to a plane would you have row 1 in the middle, would you? would you? WOULD YOU? And to all the people who just seem to wander around the departure lounge, seemingly lost, maybe they are trapped forever, it wouldn't surprise me, they don't appear to be able to match up their boarding cards or the departures boards to the layout of the terminal.
3) Airlines cutting corners.. I understand the need to turn a profit, I do.
* I'm not talking about ryanair, who are unmitigated shysters
** it wasn't my plane it was the plane I was travelling on, probably belonged to a bank. Scanned better to write "my plane"
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