ashokbhatia

The Travails of an Air Passenger

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All kinds of studies done by brainy coves the world over keep telling us that our well-heeled denizens are gradually becoming even-better-heeled with each passing year. Thanks to the capitalistic theories propounded by such experts as Milton Friedman, the concentration of wealth appears to be going up for a tiny segment of the society.

One of the off shoots of the increasing concentration of money power is that of air travel becoming more popular by the day. Manufacturers of commercial airliners, overjoyed at receiving bulk orders for delivery of shimmering new aircraft, are laughing all the way to their banks. New airlines are springing up at a rate which would put many a mushroom-growing enthusiast to well-justified shame.

But it is the hapless customer who appears to be getting increasingly short-changed over time. Here are some of the typical blues which she faces while daring to travel by air.

Pre-flight Stress

For first-time flyers, or even infrequent flyers, the challenge starts right from the time they start twiddling their thumbs trying to squeeze in whatever they desire to carry while keeping a sharp eye on the dimensions as well as the weight of their bulging suitcases. With each passing year, following the advice dished out by their finance honchos, airlines keep reducing the baggage allowances, bringing in additional charges while offering apparently juicy deals for cheaper tickets. While the algorithms of our search engines keep highlighting airlines offering the best deals, the overall cost of travel keeps galloping at a pace which would make Potato Chip (of Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen fame) sit up and take notice.

Some countries like Japan and Switzerland have already kick-started campaigns to persuade travellers to pack less and reduce the airlines’ carbon footprints. Skiing gear, helmets, insulated wear, caps, snow goggles and many other mountaineering-related items are now available for rent upon arrival at major airports. Many airlines have already reduced their check-in baggage allowance from 32 kgs to 23 kgs, leaving many a passenger from countries like India carrying a year’s supply of toys, garments, spices, pickles, and other items of daily consumption fretting and fuming over the changes. Many airlines have already started charging for cabin baggage as well. Very soon, there could be additional cuts in allowances and handsome rewards for passengers who practice a size-zero policy for the baggage they carry.

Luckily for customers, many airlines are yet to wake up to the revenue-boosting potential of charging higher fares based on the gross weight of the passenger herself. Air New Zealand appears to have already started this practice. I suspect the day is not far off when many airlines across the world would start following a similar practice.

All clouds have a silver lining, and the practice of linking fares being charged linked to a passenger’s Body Mass Index could usher in a new craze of Homo sapiens’ desire to be leaner and fitter. World Health Organization would have us believe that by 2021, worldwide obesity had nearly tripled since 1975. Well-endowed passengers would start sweating it out merely to ensure that they do not get overcharged for travelling by air. Fitness experts like Ashe Marson (Something Fresh) and gym-owners like Chimp Twist (Money for Nothing) would surely enjoy higher levels of prosperity.

The Triathlon at the Airport 

The Challenge of Checking-in

The requirements for online check-in vary not only from airline to airline but even from airport to airport, leaving many a flyer baffled, bewildered, confused, disoriented, fogged, flummoxed, mystified, nonplussed, perplexed, and puzzled.    

With a rapid increase in those wishing to take to the skies, the challenges of navigating through milling crowds at the airport merely to reach a check-in counter could leave a passenger disgruntled, disappointed and dejected. The earlier norm of reporting at least three hours prior to the departure of one’s flight is no longer valid. Cost-saving measures introduced by many airlines have apparently ensured a drastic cut in the number of ground staff operating the check-in counters. These days, just to reach one, it could take up to two hours.

Upon reaching the counter, you may get greeted by someone cast in the mould of Florence Craye. While you may be trying to check out her willowy profile sideways, her sharp eyes would already be checking out your baggage profile and weight. Anything exceeding the limits prescribed, and she will pounce on you to extract an extra pound of flesh. She may or may not extoll the virtues of the Types of Ethical Overloading but is bound to demand some extra money you have to part with.

Gone are the heady days when one could keep the check-in baggage within the stipulated limits but could carry overloaded cabin baggage, hoping that the smartly dressed ground staff will indulge the hapless passengers and turn a blind eye to bulging hand-carried items. You will be asked to insert the cabin baggage into a super-tight metal box, and should you fail in doing so, or get noticed for overly exerting yourself to somehow shove it into the size-zero box, monetary consequences will need to be faced. Ukridge would have surely come up with a betting racket linked to whether a certain passenger would get away with an oversized baggage. Shylock himself would do well to undergo a crash refresher course conducted by ground staff of this kind. 

Of Security Blues

The security guys and gals leave no stone turned to further fray the nerves of a passenger. If milk being carried for bonny babies gets thrown into a dustbin, so do some objects as small scissors and any precious gifts made of such material as wax, etc. Some kind of footwear and accessories invite a jaundiced eye, leaving the passenger praying for mercy. The process of taking off one’s belts hastily wound around by someone who faces Pear Pressure in office has left many a passenger de-trousered, shocking the on-lookers.

If your cabin baggage gets singled out for a detailed scrutiny, that too at the hands of someone of the stature of Roderick Spode, you feel as if you have just been found pinching an umbrella belonging to him. You only hope that he does not wish to jump on you with size eleven boots and see the colour of your insides. Too many traditional medicines carried by the elderly in bulk could arouse the worst suspicions. Even a silver-coated set of spoons and forks purchased by you for a loved one may have to be parted with.        

Emigration and Boarding

Another long queue awaits you next at the emigration counter. Someone in the mould of Madam Bassett will ask you a perfunctory set of questions and then only do you get to hear the loud but reassuring noise of her having stamped your passport.

When you land up at the boarding gate, you often realize with sudden horror that the boarding is not through an aerobridge. Instead, you have to trudge down a flight of stairs, take a bus, brave the elements, and then huff and puff back up the aircraft boarding stairs. This is what management experts allude to as a win-win situation. Your heart gets some well-deserved exercise, whereas the airline saves the cost of engaging an aerobridge at the airport.

Long queues at the boarding gates are now a norm. Some airlines in the USA practice a policy of laissez faire, helping the flyers to maintain a high level of physical agility and fitness. The moment the gates get thrown open, a race down the aerobridge to grab the best possible seats begins, putting many an Olympian sprinter to shame. All those who, like Bingo Little, have allowed their sporting spirits to drive them to the races at Ascot and have keenly watched the winning tactics of racing horses stand a far better chance of securing seats of their choice.

Of course, you can have a seat of choice as well, provided you are prepared to shell out some more green stuff for the privilege.

When Reality Hits One

Finally, the passenger heaves a sigh of relief, squeezes herself into the narrow seat, fastens her seat belt, and looks forward to a time of rest and repose. But wait, some more excitement is on its way.

When she looks around, she starts feeling empathetic towards the sardines which get mercilessly compressed into a tiny tin/aluminium box. A realization soon dawns that the seats have been designed by expert ergonomists who have squeezed every square inch of the carpet area of the aircraft. 

A Sudden Jump in the Blood Pressure 

The security drill starts. She suddenly realizes that she is destined to travel by an aircraft which happens to be a Boeing 737 Max. She shudders to think of all the 346 passengers who had lost their lives many years back while travelling in the same model. Her blood pressure suddenly shoots up a few notches. She silently prays to one’s Guardian Angels that the same fate may not await her during the flight. She starts wondering if she had, like Aunt Dahlia, ever committed the sin of breaking a few infant Samuel figurines at a nephew’s lair, and Fate was now sneaking up from the back with a lead pipe in hand.   

Of Tissue Restoratives and On-board-meals

Thanks to the over-zealous Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of airlines who keep advising their managements on how to keep cutting down the operating costs and boosting the inflow of the green stuff, no initiative is good enough.

Forget the midair supply of such benign tissue restoratives as tea or coffee, even plain drinking water gets served with a flourish, only to be followed by a much-dreaded card payment gadget. Forget also the juicy and not-so-juicy meals which used to be part of the airfare many years back. There are no free lunches anymore. Be prepared for being not served any nourishment even after having made an online booking for the same.  

The days are not far off when one would even be charged for using the washrooms aboard the aircraft, fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitutions of many countries be damned.   

The Short-haul Sprints

The question of getting served anything on a short-haul flight does not even arise. By the time the seatbelt sign gets switched off and one starts soaking in the glory of nature while marvelling at the white cushion of fluffy clouds below, a short opportunity of getting a cup of tea/coffee may present itself. However, even before one has sipped half the cup that supposedly cheers one, the aircraft is already preparing to land at your destination, leaving one feeling cheated and disgruntled.

In the days to come, passengers may even be allowed a hefty discount on short-haul flights provided they consent to travel in a standing position, holding a velvet-covered handrail above, while being duly strapped to a safety belt dropping down upon one from above, duly herded like a flock of subservient sheep into a separate bay at the back of the plane. We may find them behind the privileged and seated passengers who would perhaps be enjoying their bouts of snootiness, casting supercilious glances at those having a standing ride, much like the kind they themselves are made to suffer at the hands of business class passengers!  

The Horrors of Long Marathons in the Sky

Even the trauma suffered by those who travel on a long-haul flight is bound to increase in the days to come.

The Stiff-Upper-Lip Passengers

I wonder why and how airlines keep attracting passengers who follow a strict stiff-upper-lip policy while interacting with their co-passengers. Their faces and their body language carry an invisible ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. Forget a tentative smile. Abandon the thought of a handshake. Eye contact, if any were to happen, may take place only when the guy in the window seat has to visit the rest room and expects one to get up and make way for him to attend to the nature’s call.    

Those from the emerging economies who are always used to a friendly exchange of notes with the person seated next to them on, say, an eleven-hour flight across the pond, are left disgruntled at the singular absence of a human interaction, howsoever inane it may be. A wee bit of ‘What-ho’-ing is summarily ruled out, curdling whatever little milk of human kindness may still be coursing through one’s veins. This is one of the many perils faced when one undertakes a long journey on an airliner. Ashe Marson had a similar experience while traveling with Joan Valentine from London to Blandings in Something Fresh. The latter had held a magazine before her as a protection, so as to avoid making any conversation. Thanks to Covid, in-flight magazines have all but disappeared from the seat pockets in front of us. Thus, the modern woman today cannot be blamed for being found riveted to a screen in front of her.   

There is a limit to studying the safety instruction card, the menu on offer, and the inflight purchases you can indulge in. Pretty soon, the only option left is that of perusing either a book or a downloaded movie or two or latching on to the movies/series on offer on the screen in front of one. Of course, the last mentioned would work only if you are willing to pay for the earphones you would need.  

The Absence of Beauty and Amiability

It seems incredible that in this age of progress steps have not been taken to either improve the standard of looks among air travellers or even attracting those who have an amiable nature.  Time after time I step on board, full of optimism and feeling that this trip at any rate my fellow-passengers will be at least semi-human, if not human. And every time I stagger back with a hand over my eyes, shaking my head in disbelief.  

Perhaps, a reserved kind of nature is taken as a sign of maturity and wisdom. As to looks, I accept that it is not their fault that most of them look like what either Webster or Augustus might have dragged on to the plane. You see an exhausted looking aged lady devouring a literary tome in her wrinkled hands, peering through her horn-rimmed spectacles, and wearing a ghastly necklace of artificial pearls. Across the aisle, you notice a pot-bellied business honcho feverishly working on the tablet in his hands, ostensibly preparing plans to persuade his customers to part with some green stuff while buying whatever product/service his company may be offering. A sudden commotion draws your attention to a bunch of noisy and weepy tiny tots, with a much-wearied mom who has given up all hopes of reining in the noise pollution.

There is no beating the game. When the aircraft hits a stretch of turbulence, the seat belt sign gets promptly switched on, making you give up your brief saunter down the aisle and rush to your assigned seat.   

The Invisible ‘Do Not Disturb’ Signs

Even if you have the good fortune to be seated next to some moderately attractive passengers, the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign is invariably switched on for the entire duration of the flight. The charm, if any, starts waning soon after the crew starts its in-flight service.

Hope of a friendly chit-chat, if any, in your bosom, starts evaporating like water would in the vast Sahara Desert. Within the first hour of the journey, if I had imagined that someone would look over at me in a not unkindly spirit and say to herself “Ah! Jolly old Bhatia, the fan of P. G. Wodehouse, eh, what? Capital!”, I would be proven to be wrong.

By the end of the second hour, she feels that she may have seen me before somewhere and that I am not nearly the thing of engage-worthy intellect she had imagined me to be. My fascination begins to wane.

By the end of the third hour, a sort of nervous irritation floods over her as I sink into my seat and start going through a book of Plum’s. Half unconsciously, she begins to wonder if, like Bertie Wooster, I happen to be mentally negligible. She starts marvelling at the weird parental affection which kept my father and mother from drowning me in a bucket as a child. My rapidly balding head gleams at her in the overhead reading light, prompting her to wonder if I happen to be a distant cousin of Sir Roderick Glossop whose head is said to resemble the dome of St. Paul’s. More and more does she resent the vacant stare of my infernal eyes behind their spectacles. The way in which I shove some nourishment down the hatch seems to her proof of a diseased soul.

After an interminable stretch of time, when the eleventh hour finally arrives, the sheer relief at the prospect of release from a confinement in a metal tube cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet above the ground, imposed upon me by a stern-looking beak, ends up inducing a sort of grisly geniality. However, it gets partially reciprocated only by the crew at the time of exiting from the aircraft.

The journey does end up boosting my respect for Albert Einstein who had postulated something somewhere about the speed of time slowing down when we approach the speed of light, even though the speed at which an aircraft travels is but a mere fraction of the speed of light. He surely knew his stuff.      

A Censor Board for Air Passengers?

To return to the matter of improving the standard of personal beauty and amiability amongst air travellers.

The Role That Governments Can Play

Governments the world over would do well to start screening the passport applications presented to them to weed out those whose looks do not meet prescribed norms for beauty as well amiability. Since decades, the authorities have been insisting on non-smiling and morose-looking photos from the hapless applicants. This, I daresay, has eliminated the sheer pleasure of international travel and made all of us look like carrying the burden of the Homo sapiens on our slender shoulders. In fact, they should hand over such delicate tasks to their respective Ministries of Happiness, if any. The screening personnel should be ardent fans of someone like Plum, encouraging people to look good and smile when they get themselves clicked for a passport application.

Whereas the assignment may be easier for those screening applicants from the tribe of the delicately nurtured, there would be severe challenges while attempting to screen those from the tribe of the so-called sterner sex. Other than spotting three chins and a visage which reminds one of Stilton Cheesewright, those wearing horn-rimmed spectacles may have to be shown the door. Ears that stuck out at right angles would surely earn a black mark and would have to be made up for by singular beauty in the nose and mouth. There would be a standard measurement for foreheads, and it would be easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a camel than for a gold tooth to win its way across the aerobridge when the passenger has trudged his/her way up to the boarding gate.

In any case, it would be fatal if the Board of Censors contained men and women of hasty and impulsive judgment. They would need to be cool, canny persons, with educated eyes. They would be people who would have nerves of chilled steel and who can peer at a face and brood over it for some time before hitting the delete button on their computer monitors.

So, all the authorities need to do is simply to take a firm line and refuse passports to all whose photographs fail to pass a Board of Censors specially created for the purpose of dealing with this matter. After all, we have many censors – formal as well as informal ones – these days. When I publish my thoughtful blog post on Management Lessons from Kama Sutra, those who follow me on social media lose no time in registering a strong protest, making me withdraw an excellent scholarly piece from circulation, thereby depriving a part of humanity from improving their intellect.    

Some of the members of this screening board should be disciples of Sir Roderick Glossop, who can summarily reject applications of those whose Looniness Quotient does not match the requisite standards, and instead encourage those who have a very high HQ (Happiness Quotient, for the uninitiated) to acquire a well-deserved passport. Such denizens, whichever country they travel to, will be sure to spread some light and sweetness there, at least partially dispelling the gloomy darkness the local citizenry may be exposed to. Such persons would be the true brand ambassadors for their country of origin. The Happiness Index of countries which have the most exotic tourist destinations to offer would soon register an uptick, thereby keeping the government-backed public relations agencies busy.  

What Airlines Can Do

Airlines could also pitch in and join this crusade. Those revealing a toothy grin on their passports could be offered discounts on air fare, besides some other privileges like priority in boarding, free water, and tissue restoratives, and the like. On long-haul flights, some group activities and competitions could be organized, so friendships have a chance to blossom and even some browsing and sluicing could take place.

The CFOs of airlines need not lose their beauty sleep over proposals of this kind. I am certain that the losses incurred would be more than offset by the jump in airlines’ revenues when passengers start coughing up fares which are linked to their body weights. Being an astute observer, the reader may already know that obesity levels are only going up the world over.   

A Global Initiative

The International League of Happiness would do well to incentivise countries which aggressively promote humour amongst their denizens and prioritize passport applicants with happy and smiling faces affixed on their travel documents.

All is Well that Ends Well

After a long and gruelling flight, if you are entering a highbrow developed country which suffers from delusions of grandeur, the immigration process is designed to keep your nerves in a high state of entropy. A stern-looking officer cast in the mould of Dr Doctor E. Jimpson Murgatroyd who has sad, brooding eyes and long whiskers, welcomes you. His resemblance to a frog which has been looking on the dark side since it was a slip of a tadpole is apt to send your spirits right down into the basement. He is bound to give you a censorious look and ask you all sorts of unpalatable questions. After an interrogation which would be akin to a Scotland Yard detective enquiring into your life, you will sigh with relief only when you are excused for having disturbed the detective’s time to relax and unwind and are finally ‘accepted’ into the country.   

Much elated, you then rush to meet your friends or relatives waiting for you outside. Whatever the nature of trauma suffered by a hapless passenger, it gets forgotten. Till, of course, it is time to return to your base camp!   

Notes

1. Illustrations for representative purposes only; courtesy Esther Robles.
2. Inputs from Suryamouli Datta are gratefully acknowledged.

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