I will never forget the first time I flew. It was 1967, and we were on a Canadian Air Force plane. Four propellers carried us across the Atlantic toward Europe, while my siblings and I sat around a table, colouring and playing board games. I was smitten.
Fast forward 40 years. A few days ago, I would have confessed that I had become a jaded traveler. Lots and lots of flights to four continents, delivering speeches about how to find meaning in our work, combined with the new realities of air travel, had squeezed all the joy out of the experience for me.
But then two things happened.
First, on a flight out of Toronto, I sat across the aisle from a young mother and her two children -- a girl about 6 and a boy perhaps 8 years old. When our plane took off -- when we felt the thrust and lift-off so familiar to those of us who have flown a million times -- the little ones let out an astonished "whee!" And the entire plane erupted into delighted laughter.
On a second aircraft -- this one out of LA -- the entertainment system wasn't working. This meant that the passengers actually talked to one another and looked out the windows at the spectacular scenery below. Even the captain got into it, pointing out which state we were flying over and naming the mountain ranges. When was the last time you heard that kind of running commentary?
I came off each flight grinning. And you could see the difference in the faces of the crew, too.
It's not that flying is going to become easier (the airline industry continues to face tough times), but I wonder if we might find new ways to embrace the voyage -- to discover small corners of pleasure in what has become a boring and unpleasant experience.
If you want to laugh about it all, you might try Henry Mintzberg's classic, "The Flying Circus: Tales of a Tormented Traveller." It's a hilarious rant and a great outlet for our frustrations. (Mintzberg is a Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, and a fellow HuffPost blogger.)
In fact, let's exchange stories here and now. What are your best and worst air travel tales? What delighted you? What drove you out of your mind? Tell us about the first time you flew, and maybe even the time you swore you'd never get on a plane again. We're all ears!
Julia Moulden is an author, speaker and columnist.
The "Ripe" countdown has begun! My new book will be launched in just a few weeks. Watch for the first column about "Ripe: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50" -- a 12-week course on discovering passion, purpose and possibility at midlife.
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Kathy Ameche
Traveler-in-Chief
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I find joy every time I step on a plane and I know it's going to Italy!
Best,
Barbara
Worst flight: 1993, British Airways, Melbourne to London. That's a very long haul, about 26 hours I think. On board near us was a woman taking her granddaughter back to Ireland. It was no time before this woman was freaking out because she wasn't allowed to smoke (it wasn't that long after smoking had been banned on planes). She was also losing it because her granddaughter, who was about two-ish, was screaming and crying, obviously in pain from the air pressure. Mad Irish Granny stood up and screamed to the world in general that her name was whatever-it-was and she demanded to be let off the plane. Given we were however many hundreds of feet in the air and over the Central Australian desert at the time, everyone thought this was a great idea. She shut up then, but later totally lost it, picked up her screaming granddaughter and slammed her against the bulkhead. At that point the crew jumped her. She was sedated for the rest of the trip (so was the little girl, I think) and the Met were waiting to arrest her at Heathrow.
And so sad that your trip included the news of loss, too. Very, very hard to do that when you're in close proximity -- cannot imagine how heartbreaking without the good-bye.
Thanks for sharing, french queen13.
I was 7 on my first flight from Scotland to Canada as an immigrant in 1966... that began my love affair with flying. It's never become routine for me no matter how often I fly. I love it and I get as excited as a little kid every time. Almost every flight I'm on, I have someone ask me if it's my first because they see me shining.
I remember the days when the whole plane would burst into applause on touch down and I still feel like cheering but I try to control myself.
I know you're a regular reader of my column, so you'll have noticed this, too -- funny how most of this week's comments are about bad experiences. Lots of tweets about my post, though, were about the joys of flying. Some people LOVE it, no matter what.
Wonder if the airline industry is reading, too? Hope so!
http://wp.me/pN0M1-qW
and yes Hello, I hope the airline industry is reading this, and will give me an answer...!
First you have a couple of kids. Then you wait until one is being potty trained and the other has zero interesting in doing anything other then walking up and down the main aisle and you take them on a 12 hour flight. Finally, you leave the kids with grandma and fly somewhere, anywhere! That flight will be the best of your life.
we grew up in a different era. I flew many times as a really young kid - I don't remember just which was my first - but I grew up in New Orleans and by age 7 had been to New York twice, Boston, Washington DC three times, Deluth MN, Phillidelphia, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and probably a few more I don't now recall.
I would sometimes fly alone - back in those days it was OK, and the airlines didn't feel a need to have a travel agent assigned to you, like they do now. I would always wander up and talk to the pilots and very often they'd take me into the cockpit and teach me about the instruments. I especially loved the DC3s that were still flying then - this was the mid to late '50s.
They'd also give out nice trinkets - I wish I'd kept some of the metal pilots wings. They later went to plastic and they just weren't the same. And always decks of cards. At one time I must have had four decks from different airlines - all lost to history now. -sigh-
I've never lost the thrill of air travel. I became a pilot - but not commercial - and it has guided part of my life. I like talking with my row-mates, too, and frequently make friends. And, I've flown enough to have earned top-level frequent flier status at more than one airline simultaneously, though