Fear of Flying

"Hell is other people” – Jean Paul Sartre

Nothing brings into focus sharper the contemptible, claustrophobic press that is humanity than does domestic air travel. Nothing makes the gorge rise so quickly, the bile duct pump so furiously, the blood boil so hot as does the maddening crowd of fools preparing to fly.

Anyone who flies regularly will understand this. Anyone who doesn’t needs to be educated. Let me explain the most common problems associated with air travel:

Problem #1: People who can’t count to 30 or recite the alphabet

You know that little mark on your boarding pass that says “17 C”. What that means is this: in the 17^th row of the plane, there will be around four to six seats. There will be a little diagram above the row of seats telling you which particular seat is the ‘C’ seat. That’s where you sit.

Not 16A. Not 17B. Not in the aisle. Not in the cockpit. 17-fucking-C.

You got that? I don’t care how stupid you are – if you care about what fashions people wear on the red carpet at the Logies; if you think the Tea Party has sensible ideas, or if you believe fluoridated water is used by the government to control your mind. You may be this monumentally dumb, but lord knows finding that seat marked with a 17 and a C is still within your capability.

I cannot count the times I have looked down at the glazed, confused eyes of a passenger as they discover they are – whoops – in the wrong seat. Apologetic, with brows furrowed, looking back down at the ticket in their hand as if Eddie had just passed them the final question in Who Wants to be a Millionaire

It’s not fucking rocket science – it’s 17C.

#2: People with no spatial judgement

They stand there in the aisle, trying to shove their oversized carry-on luggage into the overhead lockers. It is clear it won’t fit. It’s clear their attempt to cunningly avoid the few dollars it costs to check an extra bag has come a cropper. Yet these geniuses stand there, interminably, not quite able to figure out why there 3 by 3 foot bag won’t fit into a 1.5 foot-wide hole. I’ll tell you why: your bag is too big, moron.

You thought you’d be clever and avoid check in? Fine – just don’t think you can have clean underpants and a second pair of shoes for a whole week. Either accept you will start to smell bad by the fourth day, or check an extra damn bag.  

#3: Old people in hats

Let’s get something straight, you old people in hats there standing in the aisle, telling anecdotes and exchanging pleasantries WHILE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO BOARD. These are the facts: this isn’t the fifties; this isn’t a cruise ship making its way at a leisurely pace across the ocean. It’s a fucking domestic flight in the year 2013. The aisle is thin, the flight is Virgin and therefore already late, and PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO GET TO THEIR SEATS.

The facts about the year 2013: efficiency is god; we walk fast while talking loudly on our mobile phones; we avoid eye contact with strangers, and we are all far too busy to exchange pleasantries anywhere anytime – in particular in the aisle while boarding a domestic flight.

#4: Business class travellers

Here they come, fresh-faced, walking past the huddled masses yearning to be free of the check-in line. Here they strut with their Botox smoothness and sunbed glow. Their vintage leather jackets (read: second hand, for twelve times the price) designer handbags, slightly high pants and pre-crumpled dress shirts.

Damn you your legroom and easy egress. Damn the attentive stewardess treating you like a human being, damn the edible food and your vacant toilet.

Even knowing they’ll die first in a crash is small comfort. But it is the only one you’ll find in economy.

#5: People who don’t like babies

Ah – you thought I was going the other way with this one, didn’t you? Screaming babies are, after all, one of the most teeth-grating, distracting things on a flight, are they not?

Well you are wrong. Infinitely worse are the baby-haters: those soulless hipsters, shrivelled retirees and delinquent fathers who understand not the ways of the newborn.

As a new parent, I’ve walked the aisle with a crying baby in my arms, a hundred angry eyes cast in my direction. I’ve felt the passive-aggressive animus of the cattle, as if somehow I have the power of baby-whispering in my remit and yet have chosen not to use it.

Here’s why you can’t criticise babies – they can’t help it. Drooling morons in hats don’t have to stand in the aisle. Lobotomised Tea Party voters can still find their seats; but babies can’t help being babies. Unlike you, they are yet to develop the self-restraint and common sense required as a passenger in a plane.

You don’t like Babies? Then go live in North Korea where the new dear leader, Kim Jong-un, expects babies scattered before him like rose petals as he makes his daily walk from all-you-can-eat buffet to hair salon to leaking nuclear power plant.

6#: Airlines

The strategy of the modern airline is thus: eliminate all service staff. These days you book your own ticket, print out the boarding pass and print out your own tags and place them on your bag. In the future you’ll be provided the uniform of an airline steward as you enter the plane so you can hand out stale crackers and explain how the life-vest works.

God forbid you want to speak to a human being on the phone if you are having trouble booking a ticket. No. No human beings. You’ll get a voice made to sound like a human being telling you over and over how important you are until two hours later you find yourself screaming obscenities into the phone in futile rage. The lines for in-person check-in are meandering and endless for one very simple reason: so the customer is conditioned to start doing the work the airline once provided as a service.

#7: Airports

Burnt coffee served lukewarm by a surly waiter for five dollars accompanied by stale, seven-dollar banana bread? No problem.

Egg sandwich that puts you in hospital for three days over New Year? Of course and thank you Brisbane airport, thank you, you god damn sons-of-bitches.

Car-parks owned by the airport and which constitute a monopoly on any sort of parking space within a 20-mile radius? With pricing scales designed by Don Corleone? Done.

Music system playing ‘Golden Oldies’, Good Charlotte and Nicki Minaj on repeat for all eternity?  Well, if one really wants another’s soul to die, ‘Starships’ will normally do the trick.

#8: Angry travellers

Yeah, you know the sort. They’ve taken hundreds of flights and know all the tricks. They sit there glowering at a fellow traveller’s slightest faux pas. They lack any sense of excitement or adventure. They dominate the arm-rest and treat an hour-long plane trip as something requiring military precision.

Sometimes, even, they write columns criticising tiny errors that anyone could make.  Like they don’t have anything better to do – like wear a hat or visit North Korea or walk around hating babies.

 

In his play No Exit where the line, “hell is other people” appears, John-Paul Sartre envisions hell as being locked in a room – forever – with two people you don’t like. Sartre was nearly right. Hell is being forced to fly domestic airlines, forever, with a hundred people you loathe. It is an appointment for eternity in a world designed by Qantas and Virgin, with the lowest circle being governed by Tiger Airways.