Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Flight Adventures

I hate long flights. I understand, that is not a big piece of news. I assume that everyone who travels for work dislikes the really long flights. Let me be clear, I am not talking about the 4-5 hour flights across the US, not even the 6-7 hour flights from the the US to Europe. I'm talking about the over 10 hours in the air, non-stop.

I had my share of long flights. A rough estimate would be an average at least five cross the Atlantic round trips per year for the last twenty years. Not counting domestic flights.

The reason I am suddenly writing about it, is that I have realized something during my last flight from Beijing to San Francisco. I do fine flying at night. For years I had the same ritual. I would get to the airport at 10:00 PM, take off at midnight and after about ten hours of flight, most of them sound asleep, I would land in New York where the time would be just before sunrise. Not bad. Many times I was asleep before the plane took off. Coming back, the same way. Take off around midnight and land sometime in the early afternoon. Sure, jet-lag was always present, but it was a mild version, and usually, within a day or two it was gone.

Now, living in Beijing, the option of flying at night is not there, or at least I haven't found the option yet. So I take off around noon, fly for almost 11 hours, getting no sleep whatsoever, and land at San Francisco four hours before I left Beijing – early morning. Going back – same way: take off around noon, land in Beijing on the following. No sleep again. Nasty jet-lag, the works.

And I am not mentioning the bad movies, the sad service, the narrow seats – I know, I should be on a diet, but so should at least half the other passengers, and the flight attendants too... It seems to me that the airlines, in a miserable effort to cut costs, are reducing the service to really interesting levels. I know I brought it up before, but I will again. You call the airline, and after a 15 minute tour of the automated systems, you realize that you were hung up on. They say you can check in online, only if you can get the page up. You can get a seat assignment online, but only if you have an e-ticket, and if you are really lucky.

To be honest, I tried to run the following scenario: what if a flight took off from Beijing around midnight? What time will it be when the plane lands in San Francisco? So there you have it. If you take off from Beijing around midnight, and fly for roughly eleven hours, you will get to San Francisco around eight in the evening. Is this a good deal? I think not. Supposedly you just woke up from your sleep, and it is almost time to go back to sleep. Not good. How about the way back? Take off from San Francisco at around midnight. This will land you in Beijing at around four in the morning – next day. Actually I could go for that.

But the most interesting part is always the partners you spend your flight with. What do I mean by partner? Do you have a better name for someone whom you've never seen before, who suddenly shares your bed, snores next to you (not to mention the other stuff), and tells you his life story? I guess this is what's really bad with day flights. You have to stay up, and listen to strangers blabber about their lives. Don't get me wrong, I had some great flight partners, some of whom I am still in touch with, seriously. But this one was really amazing. A 46 year old community college professor from Wyoming, who was as big as me, and wouldn't stop coughing, snoring, talking, joking in a really loud voice. 11 hours. When we landed I was beat.

And it looked so promising in the beginning. I got the aisle seat of the emergency exit row. Probably the best seat in the plane excluding the business class. And when I got there, a little old lady was sitting in the middle seat, smiling. I was happy, hoping. Two minutes later she left, and the college professor took the seat.

Sigh.

Posted at 12:34PM Mar 20, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]