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Attention Airlines. I am not an egg. Please don’t poach me
Why...
Do airlines insist on cabins being too hot when you board? I admire pilots. My son is one. The only thing more difficult to understand how to operate than a plane is possibly Donald Trump’s hairdryer… but not a simple thermostat. So please, all cabin crew, can we set cabins at a temperature that human life as we know it can survive when we board? Overheated cabins incense me (in every sense of the word) so much that I have started to take a digital thermometer with me when I travel. I enjoy waving this at the In-Flight Attendant showing a toasty 28c/86f degrees and once in my seat I loudly suggest: “Excuse me, after three minutes I should be perfectly poached. My wife sitting next to me wonders if you would bring her some buttered toast to accompany her meal.”
...and another thing
Part of the problem is that I often arrive on the plane ‘pre-heated’.
I regularly cover the distance of a marathon walking around in airport terminals to get to the plane.
Just to mess with my head, gate numbers seem to have no logic. Gates 1-11 may indeed be in that order and I think my gate 12 is next. But no; gates 12-25 start with 25 so 12 is waaaaaaaaay down the end of a corridor whose moving escalator has broken. Why? I swear it’s a plot to make me run so I am nicely sweating when I eventually get into the sauna that is the waiting plane.
...and another thing
Then we have the journey itself.
Now, I am perfectly aware that the ideal passenger is one who sleeps. Heat makes you drowsy. However too hot and people turn from being Rip Van Winkle to Rip Your Head Off. Quite often I feel like I am on a plane full of homicidal maniacs.
Equally baffling is the near certainty that on any flight over three hours that after baking on entry then poaching for a couple of hours, everyone will suddenly freeze.
I contend this is a game played by cabin staff. I can just hear them in the galley whispering amongst themselves:
“OK I bet you all the wine not drunk by passengers in first class that anyone in Row C will be the first to complain it’s now too cold.”
“No way. I’ll add to the bet my night of sex with the pilot I’m due on arrival. Definitely someone in Row E.”
Sometimes this game comes with a twist. One section of the cabin is cold enough to have pubic hair crackle, whist another hot enough to melt the wax in your ears.
Whatever, if you expect me to fly with you, I care far less about the plane possibly having an out of control electric nanny that Cabin Crew can do nothing about, than being bloody uncomfortable, which they can.
...and another thing
On the subject of comfort, Malta is blessed with a smorgasbord of airlines to fly to the UK. However, with the honourable exception of Air Malta they are all budget airlines with no seat recline.
Now, I am the first to accept that sitting ramrod straight like some demented Presbyterian on a church pew for a couple of hours is not the end of the world, but Malta to London is over three hours. To Edinburgh it’s four.
So, pay attention, EasyJet, Ryan Air etc. If you want a way you can gouge a few extra pounds for seats, it ain’t leg room. Chuck in a few rows of seats with recline and charge real extra money.
...and another thing
After being boiled then frozen and with a back stiffer than a teenage boy in a room full of Playboy bunnies, I stumble off the plane to claim my bags.
I have actually been to over 115 countries, (and many different destinations in each) and yet I have never arrived at Heathrow or Gatwick in the UK or indeed any other major airport at a gate that is not a time zone away from customs and baggage.
If any reader has got off a plane and turned immediately into customs can you tell me where you came from? It must be Narnia, Mordor, or Hogwarts but nowhere any mortal I know boarded from.
Still, at least a plane journey makes you sweat more than a work out in the gym and balances out the high calorie nonsense that passes as airline food… but my ranting on airline food was a previous blog! Safe travels.
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One Comment
Planeastically entertaining…;-)
Sometimes I wonder who was lucky enough to seat next to the ideal passenger ? I would love to read one of your articles about the different types of passengers 😉
For example the afraid of flying type, the complaining all the time type, the talking all the time type, the drinking all the time type, the workaholic type, the bad smelling type, the seducing type, the hyperactive type…