01.12.20 — The DW Sunday Column: Don’t worry — the plane trip will be “just fine”
It is interesting the number of different and sometimes catastrophic thoughts that go through your mind during a simple three-hour plane ride.
• What if the flight attendant did not close the door tight?
• Is the pilot having a good day? Is the pilot alert? Sober? Happy?
• Are the mechanics at the top of their game? Are they experienced? Are they having a good day? Sober? Happy?
• Why is there that rattle, and a shake at take off?
• Are we supposed to bounce like that?
• What is the science of turbulence, and why does it continue?
I remember one time trying to make a friend feel better about flying. I said not once, not twice but maybe three times: “don’t worry about flying — you stand a lot better chance of crashing and are in a lot more danger driving the Loop 101 to get to the airport than you are flying in the plane.”
By the end of the conversation, not only was she scared of flying but petrified of driving on the Loop 101.
So there I was on a flight to Nashville, Tennessee and the usual thoughts went through my head. Almost like a checklist:
- The pilot looks good, happy…check
- The flight attendant pulled that door shut pretty good…check
- The mechanic outside has gray hair, must be experienced…check
- The take-off seemed normal; no weird sounds…check
- Low turbulence…check
- Reminder, don’t try to calm the fears of the the person sitting next to me by scaring them out of their mind about driving on the freeway...check/lesson learned.
During this flight, my major disappointment was that my Southwest Airlines app was not downloaded; therefore, I had to watch live TV networks on my iPad browser instead of the movie that looked interesting but needed the app to work. Think about that for a second…boy how did I make it through the flight? Here I was stuck 35,000 feet above the ground watching Diners and Dives, reruns of Modern Family and the news instead of being able to watch the movie “The 15:17 to Paris.”
This recent flight took my mind back to one of my first flights. It was on People Express. It was a discount carrier that …and you might not believe me …but this is true: they collected the money for the flight during the flight, while already in the air. I had to look online to verify this to see if my college days memory was a little foggy, because it sounds a bit outrageous, and sure enough, it was true — they literally collected cash during the start of the flight for the airfare.
So there you are, in-flight, and they had a cart like they use for food/soda and would say “it will be $99 to pay for your flight.” Although my research states they collected cash, I remember them going down the isles with that old credit card “thing” (called a flatbed) where you put in the card and moved the lever over, which took the imprint of your card and there were the merchant copy and your copy separated by the blue carbon paper. Sometimes they would have to swipe back and forth a few times to make sure you could read the numbers good enough. Also, back then, they had “the book” …a publication that would show all credit card numbers that were on the bad list, and the merchant could not authorize the sale if the card in front of them was on the list. I remember thinking, “What happens if they don’t have the money? What happens if their credit card is turned down? Will we turn around and drop the passenger off in Newark?”
My flight to Nashville was in no danger of turning around due to a lack of payment by one of the passengers. Any credit card payments made during the flight were for a cocktail or a snack. And, it was inserted into a handheld device that authorized the transaction without even looking at a book to see if it was on the list.
When it was time for my return trip to Phoenix, I learned my lesson, and I made sure my Southwest app was “refreshed” and loaded prior to take off. Now I could watch the movie. The 15:17 to Paris is a good movie. Little slow at the beginning, but the film did a good job of telling how three normal kids from Sacramento were brave beyond belief and decided to, and were able to stop a terrorist from using over 300 rounds of ammunition to shoot up a train full of people going from Amsterdam to Paris.
After watching that, it occurred to me… next time, I will tell a friend that has a fear of planes, “don’t worry about flying — you could be on a train that….”
I stopped myself. Um, perhaps that would not be a good idea, either.
References — Credits — Links — Sources
Information about People Express: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Express_Airlines_(1980s)
Details about the movie: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/arts/1517-to-paris-clint-eastwood-heroes-train-attack.html
Photos: DP Watz
