Ok, Ok, I could ramble on about the miracles of intercontinental air travel, or the wonder of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge from 38,000 feet and later the mighty crater of Diamond Head slide by under the right wing of the Boeing Triple-Seven jet, or the excellence of the flight crew, aviators and supporters, or the fact that I find travel that hurts to be non-optimal these days, or the strange sensation to be driving in a place that was home for five years, or jet lag or blah blah blah.
If you have done one of these trips lately, or if you used to do it all the time (as I did, back in the day, before jets disappeared or got shot down on regularly scheduled flight segments), you know.
Suffice it to say that it is “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. The sameness was the eternal. A zero-eight hundred wheels-in-the-well at Dulles- IAD- means being in a cab before 0600, and that means two hours prior to that, which means travel anxiety, which leads to a little exuberant defiance at Willow, the night before departure, which means this travel segment hurts a bit.
No big deal. Priority security and boarding are good things, a welcome change, and almost like things used to be before those- what are we supposed to call those murdering religious fanatics these days?- started hi-jacking jets and crashing them into buildings.
All good. But this was going to be a full day in the air, and I was prepared. I had the lap-top, the iPad and two phones, plus mouse and charging cords, and the charger for the vaporizers that have replaced real smokes, and so a full backpack of electronic devices and magnetic media.
So far, no particular change. The first leg out of IAD to O’Hare (ORD) was a jet with which I was familiar. You know, the one with the entertainment module in the armrest next to you, cheap headphones in the seat pocket flap in front, the little ineffective press buttons to change channels and raise and lower the volume on the inane content.
The first segment was an hour-and-a-half on a Boeing 757, and the flight crew was apologetic about not being able to provide wifi in flight, something I had heard about but not experienced. Being able to read my eBooks was something I was looking forward to, but I had not thought through the implications, though I did get an email from someone who claimed to be above St. Louis last week, and I marveled at the memory of the first time I saw the phone with a cord attached mounted to the seat-back of a Boeing about twenty years ago.
The personal device revolution has changed a lot. Those fixed seat phones are long gone. I have not seen one in years. What else is gone are the little screens that replaced them on the seat in front you. That was a pretty cool development, and I set a personal record of watching five theatrical releases at my discretion coming back from Australia a few years ago, something I do not believe I will ever equal. The first leg featured a screen that swing down from the center aisle that played the safety deal- life vest under your seat, in the event of a crash, follow the little lights on the floor to safety, take care of yourself before putting the oxygen mask on your companion, and the way out may actually be behind you.
Even though no one but Sully Sullenberger has ever successfully landed a commercial jet (and Airbus A320) on the water in like a gazillon years, I find the idea that somebody thinks you can survive an aerial catastrophe in something other than assorted component pieces is comforting. They told me no wifi, sorry, and I thought no more of it as I watched a couple episodes of situation television comedy that seemed to reflect the general disintegration of the West.
I was fine with that, and we landed uneventfully at IAD exactly two concourses away from the long-haul segment to Honolulu- HNL. It was an almost perfect connection, and people were queuing up to board as I trudged up the concourse.
As we walked across the jetway, I looked at my boarding pass to see if they had printed the type jet, since we couldn’t see the actual airplane that awaited from the terminal. It was information I consider critical these days, since I have real reservations about the Airbus flight controls these days, as opposed to Boeing’s philosophy of giving the pilots real tactile control of their jets.
The pert flight attendant greeting us had a flower in her hair, Hawaiian-style, and I asked her, a bit suspiciously, what model aircraft would whisk us to land of Aloha.
“Boeing Triple Seven,” she said brightly, and I sighed in relief. She was a flight attendant of a certain age, as was the Captain, and I find I take comfort in people who have had enough experience to actually know what they are doing being in charge of things. As a point of reference, I will not board a Malaysian jet of any model unless I am at gunpoint.
Anyway, in the bustle of getting settled, I discovered that my seatmate, a pleasant Asian woman, was the mother of Hawaii’s latest representative for the Second District in Congress, Tulsi Gabbard. The Flight crew knew her daughter and we all oohed-and-ahhed at the pictures of the grandchild.
Meanwhile, I was leery of getting too chummy too soon on a nine-hour flight, so I looked for my headset. Nope. I dug out my iPad earphones and looked for a place to plug them in and listen to the cockpit voice communications. Nothing. It was about that time- just as the orange juice and the macadamia nuts were placed on the armrest between me and my new pal, that I realized this was a wifi-enabled Triple Seven, which is to say, United Airlines has outsourced entertainment to a satellite link and the passengers own devices.
I was prepared enough for that- but the whole concept caught me up short. My devices were never going to hold a charge for nine hours. That meant, with no physical book, I was going to be one bored cowboy by the time we were over the endless waters of the Eastern Pacific. There were options, of course, exactly binary. A free wifi connection directed us to some crappy television and a few movies I did not want to see. More intriguing was the ability to purchase access to the World Wide Web, right in my seat, for only $14 bucks.
I jumped at it, and entered my credit card information and was rewarded with the chance to access the servers that connect me to my part time job.
Is this a bold new world, or what? It used to be the only place to read a book without guilt was in the air. There were no other possibilities.
Now, I am afraid, there are.
Maybe they will even give us a way to charge our devices in flight. Not on this trip, and yes, my iPad went stupid on approach to HNL. I will do device management much better on the trip home.
Aloha!
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303