Rant of the Day: Why Planes Suck (Without Resorting to Environmentalism)

I used to love flying on Airplanes, the anticipation you felt waiting at the airport. The Thrill of takes off, fighting against those lateral Gs.  Watching the ground get further and further away and trying to spot your road from cloud level (I grew up next to Heathrow Airport). I loved Flying across the empty wastes of Siberia on my way to the far east in the summer time. Seeing the Midnight Sun setting the sky ablaze and making the great rivers and lakes of the far north glow with the same intensity as the sky above.

A plane landing over a busy beach

I even loved the in flight entertainment, I caught up with all those crappy looking movies I was too miserable to see in the cinema, you could get away with watching animated movies like Bolt, How to Train your Dragon, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs without feeling like you're being judged. (I almost added Up to that list but I love that film and I couldn’t betray that movie, not to say I don't like those other films). I even used to tolerate the food, so long the butt of unimaginative stand up jokes, I looked forward to being fed like a geriatric. The certainty that came with knowing that my pre-packaged meal that I had specially ordered to fit my dietary requirements would soon be coming was reassuring and although it would lock me in my seat for the next forty minutes, somehow, I didn’t care.

The Rare Green Air New Zealand Plane Escapes from its Only Natural Predator, the Hovercraft

But that was the past, when I was young and naïve. The countless flights to and from Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, Brunei, Dubai, Munich, Sharm El Sheik, London, New York, Eindhoven and even Newquay have jaded me.

Commuter flying is a mugs game, and I'll tell you why. You pay hundreds of pounds to have some random airline fly you half way around the world. Your going to some exotic land far far away and your imagination runs wild. All the while you're standing in a security line while being frisked by an overweight woman called Carol who hates her job. Although your pretty good at not beeping you arouse suspicion, hence your current predicament. Pat down finished you have three hours to kill in a duty free shopping center. Whoopee!!! Anyway, ten minutes later and you're bored, seriously bored.
“Flight GH586 to Nairobi is now Boarding from Gate 67”,
“Final Boarding call for all passengers on Singapore Airlines SQ121 to Mumbai”
“Would Peter File please report to gate number 12, your flight to Bangkok is about to depart”.

The Great Sprawl of Incheon International Airport, South Korea

After 2 hours of this in six languages your flight is finally ready for boarding. Naturally you've booked your seat in advance and if its a long flight it counts to be on the Aisle, otherwise in 4 hours time you'll be in the awful situation of having an obese Saudi couple sitting next to you with bladders of steel, and no grasp of English.

“Please can I get past, I really need a poo!”
    -“Sorry, no understand!”
“My arse will make little brown fish in toilet”
    -”Ke?”
“Its an emergency! I’ve been waiting for six hours! Why don’t you need the toilet!?!”
    -”Nii hue sure Po Tong Hua Ma?”
“Too late”

Aisle seat taken, you wait to see who you’ve got next to you, and its OK, they’re not fat and they don’t even smell, who knows you might even have a nice chat with them, doesn’t matter they’ve shut the window, there goes your fun, may as well just look at the plane with the red line coming out of its arse now.

What you're yearning for

“Ooh, I'm over Kazakhstan, fancy that!”
Ok, so Kazakhstan doesn’t seem that interesting (I'd love to go there but I can understand that being odd) but on your flight, you'll be flying over loads of interesting places, you could have 50 holidays over the distance you will fly to get to your package arranged tour. Doesn’t it just depress you that you never get to go to any of these countries, you're just passing them by, just a fleeting thought in a monotonous journey. It depresses me. And that really is my main point, flying is so cumbersome, so anti social and so against the true idea of traveling and the discovery of strange new civilizations beyond your own. If you travel over land, you get to see the world change, from something you consider normal, change gradually into something strange, something, other and unique. If you fly you miss all of that.

What you're missing, The Landscape of Central Asia

I could go on, but if you're still reading this then I thank you and will let you get on with your day, my rantings and ravings have held you up for long enough.

By the way, I'm a total hypocrite, I fly all the time.