Up in the air about being up in the air

I am not sure when I was first in an airplane, but I am sure when I was last in an airplane.  Some of the trips I’ve long forgotten; other I find it hard to forget.

I think my first airplane trip was in a Capitol Airlines DC-3 when I was between nine and twelve.  It was out of Cleveland to either Chicago or Detroit.  Probably Chicago because my father’s parents lived in Maywood.  But I remember more taking the train there once or twice.

My second flight was in a Ford Trimotor from Put-in-Bay in Lake Erie.  The Scoutmaster was good at picking sites for a week-long summer camp, and Put-in-Bay was high on his list.  I don’t know if I had a flight back to the mainland or just a tourist loop.  That airline ceased operations in 1985, but there are still some Trimotors flying, including one in the Port Clinton OH museum.

I don’t remember any flights until the summer between my junior and senior years of college.  I had a summer job at Ohio Oil (Marathon).  They were considering upgrading their IBM 650 with a Burroughs among others.  For some reason the group visiting Burroughs took me along, but this was no ordinary trip.

Ohio Oil had one of the largest private air fleets in the world.  We would not be driving or flying commercial from Findlay OH to Detroit.  We would be flying in a company DC-3.  But we couldn’t leave the ground until we had clearance to land in Detroit.  That was over 45 minutes on the runway in the summer in an airplane without air-conditioning.  By the time we got into the limos at Detroit, I was very glad to sit in the front with the air-conditioning going full-blast in my face.  I think I managed to keep everything down.

In graduate school and at Univac I took many air trips over the next seven years.  At Univac, several of us did our best to schedule trips on Caravelles; they were all first class.  An incident that stands out was on the approach to Minneapolis-St. Paul the plane (model forgotten) suddenly began climbing.  The pilot announced that another plane didn’t get off the runway on time.  My wife had a more scary time.  She was waiting for me and saw the airplane suddenly swoop up.

Then I spent six years with many trips all over western Europe.  One time I went to the wrong airport in Milan and had to take an overnight train instead.  One time in Paris Orly was socked in by fog.  The airline didn’t keep passengers up-to-date.  Finally, they let us send a free telegram.  I sent one to my wife in Rome.  Later, I think they let us make a phone call.  Later yet, they bussed us into Paris to stay in a hotel.  The next day I was back in Rome eating lunch with my family when my telegram about my delay arrived.

One memorable sight in Rome was standing on the ground watching a 747 overhead.  Would I really want to fly on such a humongous plane?

When we lived in Stockholm we took some vacation flights, mostly in ski season.  A warmer flight was to the island of Rhodes.  I flew direct to Rhodes, but my wife had gone to Athens with her mother.  When they were in the air leaving Athens, Black September attacked the airport, killing at least three.

When we came back to the States, I continued flying wherever for Univac.  Sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, and sometimes by my own design.  I somehow managed to go to most Univac user conferences and several professional association conferences.  I even got a trip back to Europe to give a presentation in Madrid and used vacation time to visit Ireland.  Yep, lots of Magrees/McGrees in Kilkenny, but none provably related to me.

When I started my own company, I managed to scrape together money to fly to conferences or to take a few ski trips.  Sometimes I took my early Macintosh with me.  That now big bulky thing was designed to fit under a airline seat.  And it did, and then it did not; signs of coming changes.

Our first flight to Japan was to visit our son who was teaching there.  In coach we were almost treated as royalty, on an American plane!  Seating was something like 2-3-2 or 2-4-2.  We had seats by an emergency door and had plenty of leg room.

Our second flight was out of Chicago with Japan Air.  We didn’t have as much leg room but we did have excellent service.  The worst part was all the hubbub at Narita Airport to find the right place to checkin and all the restaurants that had prices posted in Japanese numbers.

Our third and my hoped for last flight was a multiple leg trip without much legroom - Minneapolis to Toronto to pick up my mother-in-law.  To Chicago to pick up a U.S. airline.  To Tokyo for a wonderful time for all.  Reverse all that for the return.  With the 3-5-3 seating I had it with flying.  And I said so.

Then we get a Christmas present to fly to Las Vegas and drive on to Heavenly Valley.  OK, daughter, I’ll accept.  We had good time, but that was the last time I flew.

Since then, my wife has flown to Japan three times and expects to do so several more times.  Whenever I think about it, I get a squeezed feeling in my shoulders and restless leg syndrome.

When Mel wrote this he was sitting at home while his wife flew off to visit her sisters.

Also in Reader Weekly, 2015-06-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/06/03/5391_up_in_the_air_about_being_up_in_the_air

Another quote from the past - flying

"Flying is like taking a very expensive Greyhound bus" - Shari Flasness

I found this as a note from the June meeting of the Italian Conversation Group at Sir Ben's in Duluth.  The conversation is more often about travel to Italy than speaking Italian.

But Shari's expensive bus is starting to get poor maintenance.  See "Fixing American Airlines", 2012-10-23, Jim Hightower, republished in the 2012-10-25 Reader Weekly. 

A reminder why I don't fly

The Wall Street Journal had a great article on how to handle various situations in current day air travel.  "So who gets the armrest", Scott McCartney, Wall Street Journal, 2011-03-17 reinforced my decision to avoid flying anywhere.  It just ain't fun anymore.

TSA is wrong target, but the only one we can reach

A major boycott may be forming against the full-body scanners of the Transportation Security Agency.  See "Viral 'pornoscan' protest challenges TSA" and http://wewontfly.com/.

However, the TSA is only a product of decades of foreign policy failures.  The United States has been meddling in other countries affairs at a level and a time span that we would not tolerate if other countries did the same to us.  Our chickens have come home to roost.

Andrew Bacevich has been warning about our military/intelligence failures for some time, but despite the volume and popularity of his writing, he doesn't seem to be making much progress bringing about reform.  See his "The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism" and "Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War", and many of his magazine articles.

Maybe a boycott of air travel could bring about a major change in foreign policy.  It may seem like a win for the terrorists, but they keep winning in small ways all the time.  The burden on passengers of airport security is a big win for terrorists; they have disrupted our economy and our sense of well-being.  How long will we have to put up with terrorists before governments figure out how to permanently neutralize them without violence that creates more terrorists.

Sometimes you have to lose money to make money

With the merger of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, some are concerned that northern Minnesota may lose air service to the Twin Cities. Delta is aware that if the cost of airfare to the Twin Cities, a major air hub, gets too high, then people will drive to the Twin Cities to catch a flight. If they do, they may choose other airlines than Delta.

See "Delta lands in Duluth to try to ease Northland concerns", Duluth News Tribune, 2009-02-12

The tickets for connecting flights may have to be loss leaders in order to get people on the longer flights.

Government and industry are filled with examples of loss leaders creating greater gains and of cutting out "losing" activities that actually lose profitable activities. Think Circuit City laying off high-paid clerks. How many people stopped going to Circuit City because they couldn't find knowledgeable clerks?

I may never fly again

Where have the friendly skies gone? Well, skies are still friendly, at least staff-wise. Counter personnel and cabin attendants do their best to be friendly to all. Even the security inspectors do their best to be friendly and helpful, even when you forget that liquid in your carry-on luggage.

But the security inspection is the middle of the hassle that flying has become. The parking and drop-off areas are more and more crowded. The lines are long at check-in. Then you have to stand in a long line at security, empty your pockets of keys, change, and other paraphernalia (you did leave your pocket knife at home, didn't you?), take off your shoes and belt, and put your cell phone, PDA, camera, and laptop in the box. Because of the long lines, you feel rushed doing all of this.

You've successfully gotten through security without forgetting anything or without having anything confiscated, and now you can relax, sort of. You still have to find a seat in the lounge, hopefully enough together for all in your group. Thank goodness that airports are now smoke-free.

Finally your plane is ready to board. There's no hurry because they won't leave the gate until everybody is buckled in. Still, it is a pain to wait for somebody with their butt in the aisle while they put their stuff in the overhead bin. Then of course you have a middle or window seat and the person in the aisle seat is already in place, You finally manage to sidle into your seat, find the seat belt ends, and buckle up. If you're lucky the plane takes off in the next fifteen minutes.

The plane finally gets to cruising altitude and you open a book to read. But suddenly the seat in front of you comes practically in your face. The person in front wants to nap and doesn't even consider how close the seat top comes to you. It's even worse if you were hoping to work on your laptop.

If the flight is more than a couple of hours of long, you start to get tense in your legs because you can't move them much. It is almost too much effort to get out, even if you have an aisle seat. If you are on a transoceanic flight, the airline will run a video about exercise. The trim young lady is shown doing all of her stretches without a seat in front of her or any other passengers by her side. If you try any of these exercises, you bump your shin against the seat in front of you or put your elbow in your neighbor's eye.

Finally, after much fidgeting and catnapping, you land at your destination airport. As soon as the plane stops, half the passengers pop up and start getting their belongings from the overhead bins. If you have other luggage it doesn't matter how fast you get off the plane. Even if you're the last person off and walk very slowly to baggage claim, your baggage won't be ready.

When you get to baggage claim, half the passengers are jammed right up the the carousel, even if their bag is nowhere in sight. You have to watch carefully between heads or arms for yours. If it comes, you bowl three or four people over as you try to right your moving bag, get a good grip on it, and heave it over the lip of the carousel. On the other hand, in some ridiculously high percentage of the time, one or more of your bags may not arrive at all. This is especially true if you had connecting flights, even on the same airline.

Matters are more complicated if your flight crosses some man-made line, referred to as an international border. You have to stand in one or two more lines, one to prove who you are and where you live, and another to prove you aren't smuggling in any prohibited material. Generally the second is perfunctory; you just walk on by. Again, the people who staff these barriers are generally friendly, or at least courteous. But the system is a great nuisance. If you live in the United States, aren't you glad each state isn't a separate country?

After our trip to Japan last year I said I never wanted to fly again. The U.S-Japan leg was bad enough, but we made it a three-day, three leg trip each way. We were accompanying my 92-year-old mother-in-law who lived outside Toronto. Our trip was Minneapolis-Toronto, Toronto-Chicago, Chicago-Tokyo and the reverse. If I couldn't drive to a place, I wouldn't travel again.

So, for Christmas, our daughter and son-in-law gave us a trip to Heavenly Valley. How could we say no? It was only a three-hour plane trip to Las Vegas and an eight-hour drive to Lake Tahoe, but still that three hours felt like eight. I renewed my vow to never fly again. And I so want to visit Europe, Iceland, and Japan again, but...

What new Northwest Airlines?

"The New Northwest" is the headline in the business section of the Star Tribune, May 31, 2007. Is a new Northwest Airlines better? I doubt it.

My wife made a reservation for Toronto-Duluth because she would be able to stay on the same plane through Minneapolis-St. Paul. The previous time she made the trip her luggage didn't make the MSP-Duluth leg of the trip and had to be delivered the next day. So, thought she, having the same plane should solve that problem.

When she checked in at Toronto, she was told that she would have to change planes at MSP. This also meant she would have to walk to another concourse when she got there.

When she boarded the plane, the captain announced the plane would be flying through to Duluth. The crew hadn't even been told of the flight change!

When I checked for her arrival time prior to picking her up, the plane had left the gate about 25 minutes late but hadn't taken off. Just before I left the house I left the house 20 minutes later, the web site said the plane took off eight minutes after it left the gate.

When she got to Duluth I met her at baggage claim. We waited and watched for her bag to come down the chute. The baggage handlers stopped the chute and her bag wasn't there.

We are now at one hour after the original arrival time. We went to the checkin counter staffed by one person and waited our turn. The bag would probably arrive on the next flight which should arrive any minute. It was on that flight. We arrived home one hour and ten minutes after we should have.

My wife's advice for all fliers: always take a book.