Thursday, 27 January 2011

Are long haul flights managed by Guantanamo bay?

After the previous post that had been sitting in my mind for some time, slowly percolating away, concerning me about the serious nature of the British public's mind set, I find myself on a more trivial topic today.

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting a beautiful country far, far away. But in order to reach this sun kissed paradise, first I had to get there. This as you may guess involved not walking or sailing, but flying.

There was a time when air travel was considered glamorous but since the 1920s things have changed a little. Budget airlines are functional and practical even if the cabin crew wear suits so shiny I can actually see my face in them and we accept that our experience on them is going to be pretty dull. But I was flying on a major carrier so you'd expect the time spent flying to be a little more enjoyable.

To an extent it was. On the flight out they had recent movies and plenty of entertainment. The staff were very friendly and always helpful. I could watch a film, play my friend at battleships or just read if I wanted. All very nice.... on the flight out.

The flight back was exactly the same except for one difference: it was at night. That meant that I really wanted, nay, needed to get some sleep. Things started well. I had a free seat next to me so I could try to lie down across two seats and the kind woman behind me didn't mind me putting my seat back to recline a little more. All this meant that as 1:00am rolled up I was read to start trying to drift off.

At first it was reasonably successful. I can't quite tell how successful, one never can when you're in that 'inbetween state' of not quite fully asleep but not completely awake either, but I think between 2 and 3 I was in a sort of sleep state.

At this point however the carrier apparently decided to go from luxury airliner to prison cell 'wanna-be', because at 3am the lights came on in glorious style waking me up and making sure there was little chance to go back to sleep. I've heard that in Guantanamo Bay and in other POW camps it is standard practice to leave a light on in the cell 24 hours a day to sleep deprive and disorientate the 'visitor'. I didn't realise that this ideas had now been incorporated into the airliners service agreement. Presumably it was in the small print.

Second are the seats. Now I get that the seat has to conform to a million different requirements and by the time they're adhered to there is little in the way left for comfort, especially when you want to squeeze as many people onto a plane as possible but isn't there someway to make it possible to sleep on them? Lets be honest, take out the luggage bins and I'd be able to sleep in the overhead space, its long and flat which is pretty much all I'd need since they had already provided a pillow.

Third, and this is on the one that really gets me: air conditioning. I say air conditioning although this feels like the wrong word, unless it is used in the same sense as 'North Korean spies are conditioned by the state'. So basically ruined.

Air is a pretty plentiful commodity, admittedly not at 30,000ft but it is generally and so I think we take it for granted. This complacency is easily removed for my by a trip in a Boeing.

First of all the air was cold, which was a welcome break from the oppressive heat of paradise. However after 5 hours of flying its far less welcome. The air was not cool but cold and since when you're trying to sleep your body temperature drops, a cold breeze is the last thing you need to help you sleep and yes I had already turned the vents off, but the pressure was so high it was getting through anyway.

Second, the dryness of the air was, is and always has been, horrid. I don't know what the engineer of the system knows about human beings but apparently they think that we're used to air that seems to have come across the Sahara and as a result has been striped of every last bit of moisture. The result of which is that you're constantly dehydrated and your nasal passages dry up. This is particularly bad as drying out your nasal passages makes you more likely to catch colds and other airborne infections. Which isn't what you want when sharing the same air with 280 other people.

Thanks to the complete lack of moisture even though I had several drinks through an 8-9 hour flight I never used the toilet once, not once. Is this a ploy? Less toilets? More drinks sold? I don't know, all I do know is that the moment they start a service for 1st class air in your cabin, I'll give serious though to an upgrade!

I don't know what to suggest for the airlines really. Obviously the aim is to stop people sleeping and its seems they have it down to a tee. Perhaps maybe they could also employ someone to occasionally kick you in the head just as you're about to drop off to sleep, just to get the fuller experience?

Either way I can happily say for all my ramblings that those points I've mentioned aside, the flight was prompt, the service was great, the destination was simply staggeringly beautiful and the company (that is the people present, not the airline corporation) was incomparable.

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