Tag: airplanes

All Aboard!!!

All Aboard!!!

I am on a lot of planes. This “boarding the plane” video was very interesting. Actually, I think boarding times would go a LOT faster if airlines would simply take your suitcase for free and hold it underneath the plane and return it to you when you land. I have heard of the alternating row/alternating side solution before (watch to the end) but never seen it explained so well.

Header Photo by Free-Photos (Pixabay)
RANT: Please don’t bruise me with your book bag

RANT: Please don’t bruise me with your book bag

I fly a lot. I typically do close to 100,000 miles in a year.

Anyone that frequently flies goes into what I call Airport Mode. This mode essentially means you zone out other people. You ignore crying babies. You are indifferent to people that talk loudly. You tolerate idiots that cannot squeeze their tuba-sized suitcase into the overhead bins.

The hardest thing to ignore is a bruised shoulder. This happens when an inconsiderate person insists on wearing their book bag on the plane and then smashes it against your shoulder while they are walking down the aisle.

bookbag photoYour book bag doesn’t make you rude when you are walking in a straight line. However, when you turn it is quite likely that you don’t realize that you are now quite deep.

You typically turn on your spine. All of your life, you have learned that you have no trunk behind you and you don’t have to make wide turns. But with that book bag, you are now like a semi-truck. You are now a vehicle that makes wide turns.

So when you are walking down the aisle of a plane, you are quite good when you are going straight. As soon you start to rotate though, remember you are pulling a trailer! That book bag and you simply do not fit sideways in the aisle. So when you rotate your body, that massive book bag is swinging like a wide-load. It’s destination is my shoulder.plane aisle photo

I probably won’t tell you that you just walloped me with your bag. I will keep silent because I am in Airport Mode. I don’t want to interact with you. I don’t want to be your friend. I am never going to see you again and I don’t want to spend the energy to fix your rudeness. It is much easier for me to wince, try to avoid you hitting me again, and go back to reading my email on my phone before I am told to stop.

Frankly, I just wish you would read this article and leave my shoulder alone. It is still sore from yesterday’s flight.

Photo by sinosplice

Photo by foilman

Spirit Airlines and carry on fees

Spirit Airlines and carry on fees

I do not fly on Spirit Airlines. They don’t have regular service to the city that I live in so I have not had an opportunity to board one of their planes. I say this simply because my comments below need to be put in context.

I agree with their policy of charging for carry-on luggage.

I am sick and tired of getting to the airplane on time, quickly and efficiently getting to my seat with my one computer bag, settling in with a good magazine and my iPhone, and then watching all of the other idiots try to stuff all of their earthly possessions into the overhead compartment.

When I flew last week, at least 4 people didn’t have room overhead and had to gate check their bags. This simply slowed down the boarding and we left the gate late. In addition, the person sitting beside me had to gate check her bag because it simply didn’t fit in the overhead bin. I am not sure why she thought it would fit, it was so large and heavy that she couldn’t lift it over her head (and i swear that my overweight 6’3″ frame would have fit into the bag she was hauling).

I think the airlines are screwed up.  Make checking bags more efficient and friendly but shrink the size of the bag that is allowed on the plane to be briefcase size. Get their passengers onto the plane without the process feeling like I am being crammed into an old VW van. Then when we land, it won’t take me 20 minutes to get off the plane while the fat woman in front of me tries to pull her massive flowered bag out of the compartment and wheel it down the aisle.

Flying was never fun but now it is becoming painful.