You don’t see that sight these days much
As we spun around at the end of the runway, you could see a few cars and vans parked in the fields just outside the airport fence. There were kids and adults standing there. Presumably, the adults had brought the kids on this Sunday morning to show them the spectacle of a flight landing or taking off.
Flying has become so inexpensive and accessible to the masses that the thrill and excitement has almost completely gone away for the passengers. Gone are the nattily dressed passengers, the gourmet food, the free champagne and most sadly for me, those incredibly unique bag tags! That has been replaced with flight anxiety for some, exasperation when the WiFi does not work and low level tussle over dominance of the armrest in the middle.
As an industry, airlines must be one of the least appreciated by its customers. The incredible engineering to keep an aluminum tube filled with two hundred passengers about 35,000 feet above ground, the mind blowing backup to backup safety features to get it up there, keep it there and bring it back in a fully controlled fashion, all this at a speed where your flight time can match your drive time from home to the airport to begin with, flying above storm systems at times… and after all this, the customer is irate that the coffee served was lukewarm!
I remember we had to land in Budapest once due to a medical emergency while flying over Europe. There too, like what I just saw, there were kids watching planes land and take off. Excepting there, it was an organized tour. Tour buses had ferried school kids to the viewing area outside the airport fence. I remember one of the adults (perhaps teacher) watching our previous plane take off with the same amount of awe as the kids. And the kids were so excited, they kept waving at us. Caught up in the moment, I had waved back too.
I was nearly 6 years old when my dad had taken my sister and I to Dum Dum airport to see the one flight that day taking off. I remember being shocked by the size of the plane. Watching those things in the sky from the ground, I had figured it could not be more than the size of a bus. And the impressive, roaring sound it made. Numerous days were spent thereafter holding makeshift paper planes and roaring down the street in an attempt to take off!
Today, it somehow lifted by spirits up to see how planes still hold the sense of awe, adventure and imagination for some kids. Hope in some shape and fashion, this will always be the case.
Now, why isn’t this plane Wifi working still? I have a post to upload 🙂 🙂
