Alexander Bisley says we should be appreciative of the wonders of flight.
We make fun of people who fetishise the past. But with air travel, everyone seems to glorify the good old days. Trawling through social media, you'd think people across the social spectrum had been the victim of some
modern atrocity: but no, it's just that their bargain flight from Melbourne to Sydney, or Auckland to Wellington, was delayed by
20 minutes.
Comedian Louis CK summarises the whinging entertainingly: "People on planes are the worst. They make their whole flight experience sound like it was a f***ing cattle car in Poland in the 40s."
As a kid who grew up in the badlands of rural Wairarapa, I'm a touch haunted by unrelentingly long, chunderous drives to Auckland to see my whanau. And raggedy family vehicles were luxury compared to the buses. That curmudgeonly bus driver who made kids hold on to the sick bag after they had spewed into it. Delayed overnight bus rides where the unwashed collective flatulence made high-school boarding houses seem like Dolce & Gabbana. That bus blowing up in rural King Country in the chilly wee hours, waiting for an eternity for the replacement.
Sure, airpoint security screening can be a bit tedious. But the staff are nice and try to be efficient. It's not their fault that New Zealand governments have maintained seemingly excessive security protocols, as eminently understandable and necessary as they were in the aftermath of al Qaeda slamming passenger planes into the World Trade Centre. (C'mon, Phil Twyford and Gerry Brownlee, how about a bipartisan review for 2019?)
Flying is much safer and easier than driving. Domestic check-in is done by pressing a button on your phone. Even landing in Wellington during a near-hurricane, or in Queenstown during a full-spectrum whiteout, I feel safe because of the pilots' skill, professionalism and high-tech tools. Even in these globally turbulent times, the past decade has been, in percentage terms, aviation's safest.
Today, even on a freelance journalist's humble income, I can afford Jetstar or even Air New Zealand on the semi-regular trip up from the capital to enjoy everything the world's most dynamic Polynesian city has to offer. Twenty years ago, if I had predicted I would be getting two-figure return tickets from Wellington to Auckland several times a year, people would have laughed.
The idea that so many people could afford to take international flights, and be almost anywhere around the world within 24 hours, would also have been deemed foolish.
Even a city as overcrowded, creaky and fiendishly expensive as London has an array of cheap flights to enticing destinations such as Sweden's Gothenburg, Turkey's Istanbul, Italy's Venice, the Greek islands, and many more. Just follow the rules and turn up on time. If the likes of RyanAir and Pegasus and EasyJet are the enemy, you're too privileged with your friends. Sure, you might feel that Lufthansa scrimps an inch on legroom for long-haul Economy Class passengers and maybe you once got served a dry bun on a United flight. But there are other options, you know. And none of these carriers permit onboard smoking, which was all the rage back in the day.
Maybe it was nice that people used to dress up all fancy for flights. I personally prefer that a worker can dress normally, or as though they're ready to hit the majestic Te Henga or Routeburn tracks for the rest of the day. I enjoy the discipline of getting everything into a small daypack and a laptop bag, and (mostly) not having gratuitous luggage to haul about.
And yet — in this golden age of travel — people still complain.
So taihoa — take it easy, enjoy this lucky age while it lasts this year, and maybe a few more. Tensions in the Middle East could push up the price of oil. Though combustion technology will continue to go greener, we're probably going to get whacked with serious carbon taxes (or similar) to try to mitigate against climate change.
For today, enough already with the whingeing. We're privileged. Enjoy a chat with the interesting ordinary person in the seat next to you, or the spectacular views of beautiful Aotearoa (or elsewhere) from your window.
