Even though every business on the planet continues to try and reduce costs, and those cost reduction efforts almost always include trying to reduce the amount spent on travel, we all seem to continue to have to travel. Personally I no longer see anything remotely alluring about travel. I have grown to regard all planes as not much more than glorified buses with wings. And when the lights are out and you are asleep it is amazing how one hotel room seems to resemble another. If it wasn’t for the opportunity to sample the local cuisines and the local beers, as I have said before, I don’t think there would be any way people could get me to travel anymore.
Oh yeah, there is that opportunity to meet with the customers thing. That is always a good reason to go.
It seems every time I turn on the television there is some commercial by some airline or another touting the fact that they are upgrading their fleet to the latest and greatest equipment available. I meet this with a decidedly mixed response. I like the fact that the old planes are being replaced by new ones and that there is now presumably a reduced opportunity for a mid flight malfunction that would cause the plane to suddenly become un-airworthy. I am much in favor of reducing the possibilities of this occurrence.
On the other hand I know that the new planes will still have the same issue for me associated with the recycling of the cabin air in the plane that always uncomfortably dries out my skin, my eyes and my sinuses. This recycled cabin air makes it almost impossible for me to answer the customs agent’s questions regarding why I am visiting whatever place I am visiting. Blinking violently with blood shot eyes and choking in the middle of saying you are visiting for business, is not the most recommended way to try and enter a foreign country. It has a tendency to invite further questions and scrutiny, which always enjoyable.
One of the ways to deal with the dryness of the air in the cabin is to drink fluids. Water is always preferred, but if pressed as I have said before, I will replace the water with beer. No, wait a minute. I meant beer. Beer is always the preferred as the source of fluid replenishment while flying. If you are going to replenish fluids beer can help do that as well as provide other life sustaining nutrients. The only problem with replenishing much needed fluids while on an extended flight is that this occasionally results in the need to go to the bathroom.
For those of you who have not been on any of the new fleets of airplanes recently put in service, as advertised by the airlines, the new planes are designed to accommodate people with an efficiency that would make a modern automated sardine canning factory jealous. I believe that one of the ways they have accomplished this density of packing is by reducing the number of bathrooms on the plane. On most international flights these days you now have more than three hundred people sitting together for upwards of nine to ten hours and they all get to share the same two bathrooms. And these are not just ordinary bathrooms. These are single occupancy bathrooms that occupy no more than two square feet of precious and expensive space on these new airplanes that could otherwise be occupied by fare paying passengers. They are very cozy, if you know what I mean.
Despite this fact it seems that everyone who uses one of these bathrooms seems to believe that they are the only person that has to deal with a call of nature. They usually leave it in a condition that rivals that of a freshman’s dorm room immediately after a victorious homecoming football game celebration. Believe it or not I have actually seen someone bring their razors and hair driers into these bathrooms, apparently so they can look their best when they exit the plane after an overnight flight. In situations like this, one must plan for their bathroom needs well in advance or face the potential for a stressful wait.
The only thing more uncomfortable than standing in front of two hundred people waiting to use the micro-bathroom is sitting in a minimally padded chair for more than nine or ten hours. In another one of the airline’s efforts to be ever more cost efficient most airlines have adapted their jets to handle the largest number of passengers possible. They have done this by removing all the useless, unprofitable space possible.
Most of us commonly refer to this useless, unprofitable space as leg room.
They have also ingeniously compensated for this removal of leg room by modifying the seats so that they will no longer recline more than one and a half inches. By doing this they can continue to claim that you have the comfort of a reclining seat without actually having to provide you a seat that truly reclines. In the coach seats that are all that most businesses will pay for during business travel, you now get the opportunity to sit essentially erect with your knees firmly pressed against the seat in front of you for the entire flight. You are also afforded the opportunity to be continually reminded of this situation in that most usually the person in the seat behind you has their knees firmly against the back of your seat as well.
There are many seating options on a long flight. You have the choice of having people crawl over you on their way to waiting in line in front of everyone to use the bathroom, or conversely being the one that crawls over everyone on your way to standing line in front of everyone to go to the bathroom. For the unfamiliar, this means that you can either sit on the aisle or you can sit somewhere else. On the aisle everyone sitting inside of you gets to crawl over you when they want or need to get up. If you are not on the aisle, then you are one of the ones doing the crawling. I have come to the conclusion that I prefer to be crawled over instead of having to do the crawling.
There are those that prefer the window seat. I have done some empirical testing of my own by sitting in the window seat, and I guess I just don’t get it. The window seat provides a wonderful view of the airport when you are taking off or landing, unless you are doing one of those things at night, otherwise it affords you a wonderful view of the sky, the clouds, or most usually on an international flight, the night. Personally a great view of the various airports and the dark night sky does not hold great allure to me while travelling.
While flying does present several entertaining opportunities for comfort and enjoyment, it is at least flying. I recently had the opportunity to visit a major city that did not in fact have an airport with major airline service. I didn’t think those types of major metropolises existed anymore, but apparently they do. This necessitated travel via a means other than and in addition to air travel. I had to fly ten hours plus, and then take a train. Perhaps in the future I’ll relate the joys of train travel, but for now I’ll be content in having related more of the joys associated with international coach class air travel.