Fear Of Flying

I hate to fly. Yes I know that, notwithstanding Icarus's disobedience of his father and its disastrous consequence, flying is the safest form of transportation available. People say that takeoff, approach, and landing are the most hazardous parts of the air travel, but I know that the most dangerous leg of my flight is my trip to the airport. Other drivers just can't be trusted. Many more people die in automobile accidents than in those involving aircraft. Even in time of war. And the statistics are even more lopsided when the determination relates to the number of deaths per passenger mile.

Yet I hate to fly. But it's not any particular fear of flying. Certainly not a rational fear. (I'll admit that every now and then I have a fantasy about the airborne bus falling from the sky, but it doesn't really constitute fear, and the image disappears quickly in the face of common sense.) Every now and then there's a story in the media about an airplane disaster somewhere or other, but that's not because flying is dangerous. Quite the reverse. Accidents are newsworthy because they're so uncommon, and because they sound so horrible. What is not reported is that there are about three billion airline passengers each year with a total of 173 fatalities in 2013. That compares to 1,589 knife-related homicides in the United States alone that year. And over 33,000 deaths in American automobile accidents. Worldwide, of course, the numbers are higher.

Still, I hate to fly. And that's a little inconvenient since my daughter and her husband and six children live in Jerusalem. And another granddaughter with her husband and daughter live there as well. (There's also an assortment of other relatives, but I'll spare you.) So my wife and I take a couple of trips to Israel each year. Flights. And we take some other air trips as well, so it adds up.

I remember my first flight, in the late 1940's. It was just after the Second World War and my family flew from La Guardia Field in New York to Albany (NY) on a DC 3. Then I was scared, but by 1950, when we flew to Chicago, that was less of an issue. I can't even remember the flight. It made no impression on me. We took a tour of the States by train from there (train travel is very safe – only a little over ten times as dangerous as flying) and I recall that I enjoyed the trip greatly – especially the sleeping car. Clearly I wasn't devoid of awareness of the world around me, but I guess that flying no longer inspired fear. Even more pertinent, a few years later my brother and I traveled to (and from) Europe on the Ile de France. I did get seasick but I never worried about the ship sinking and all of us drowning, despite the fact that the likelihood of dying while on a ship journey is more than fifty times that of flying. But I digress.

If I'm not worried about flying, then, why do I hate it so? Well, let's start with getting on the plane. No. It begins long before that. The first trick is negotiating the airline's web site, and that of the ticketing agent. Perhaps it's my computer, but the sites never seem to work right. Choosing an airline for me is based almost entirely on the lowest price and flight times most similar to my schedule. I have no loyalty to a particular company so it should be easy. But it isn't. I guess the same is true for those who use other modes of travel however, so I won't pursue the issue. But I do blame the airlines for sometimes forgetting my seat or food choices. They solicit the information from me, but that doesn't always get translated into the right seat or the right meal.

I also blame them for wasting all my time with printing boarding passes which are then redone by them when I check in. And there are delays caused by a long line of passengers waiting to do so, along as well as secondary to the security check-in which requires me to undress first and re-dress afterward. I certainly feel reassured by the security, but I've never been blown up on the subway even though they lack the sophistication of the airlines.

I have other, more significant beefs though. Cabins on cruise ships may be small, but they're luxurious compared to the narrow seats on planes and the lack of adequate leg room. (And the available space – actually its absence – in the dirty toilets.) Each inch that they take from every seat may translate to more rows and more seats and, most important, more revenue for the carrier, but it only adds to the discomfort of the carried. (You can be sure I'm not going to pay the obscene premium that they demand for a first-class seat.) The lack of space also makes balancing a meal on the plane a real challenge. I guess that's just as well though since the food isn't very good. I only wish that they'd pick up the garbage more promptly rather than leaving it for me.

If there was a long wait to board the plane, it takes even longer to get off after the plane has landed. First you must retrieve your carry-on luggage from wherever it is. It's almost a sure thing that the overhead bin intended for your seat will be filled by the time you get there and the space under the seats is inadequate, and filling it with anything makes sitting even more uncomfortable. Then there's a lot of rushing and pushing to get into line to leave the plane, but that's not really of any consequence because it takes a long time for the line to move, and even after you disembark everyone has to wait by the same carousel for the baggage. If yours hasn't been lost, it will surely be the last to arrive.

And then there's the dangerous trip home from the airport.

I haven't mentioned a number of the problems like the crying babies, the cramping caused by the passenger in front of you who lowers his seat back, and the child behind you who kicks your seat throughout the flight. And the people standing in the aisle next to your seat so they can talk with their friends. But by now you get the point. What's a traveler to do?

So the next time I visit my daughter I'll probably … fly. What the hell. It's the only game in town.

It's Easy Being Green

My wife and I like to travel. Usually it's during the summer, and we recently returned from a tour of Ireland.[i] It's green as advertised. (But so are my lawn and meadows that I've seen along the road in many of the places we've traveled.) I suppose there were shamrocks there but I didn't look. There also were plenty of clouds and almost daily rain – though I must admit that the rains tended to last for only a few minutes each day. There was also quite a bit of sunshine between the episodes of rain. And it was cool. It was mid-August, but the daytime temperatures were usually in the sixties.[ii]

I don't say this as a matter of criticism. We enjoyed our time on the Emerald Isle, but the green on which it prides itself was nothing unusual, requiring only decent weather and fertile fields. It was nice, but it seemed to be more a marketing tool than something out of the ordinary. There were other attractions that contributed to our enjoyment – both those which gave us the feeling of being in Ireland, and those with specific historical dimensions. But familiar as it seemed, the trip itself, not Ireland, was the feature that seemed most worthy of note. And the people who accompanied us.

“Familiar as it seemed.” When we were young, my wife and I would plan our own vacations – all the details and arrangements – and go by ourselves to some unknown and, perhaps, exotic locale in which we would try to be inconspicuous as we soaked up the region's culture and enjoy its fare. We weren't very successful, however. Neither of us is all that good with languages, so our travel was mainly to places where English was the primary tongue. Even then we were recognizable tourists, not blending in very well. And because we limited ourselves to kosher food, and restaurants available to us at the time were few, we wound up having the same meals irrespective of our destination, and much of it was made by us from ingredients we either brought along or obtained from a nearby supermarket. There was a lot of work with relatively little return in terms of what we were looking for.

So we changed our approach. Beginning a couple of decades ago we started going on packaged tours. They were more expensive[iii] than what we could do on our own, but we decided that they made more sense for us. There was less planning of itineraries and bookings; there was less concern about where we'd get food; and there was no concern about being inconspicuous. We were tourists and we never hid it very well anyway.

But the tours introduced us to something we hadn't anticipated – other people. Not that we didn't expect people to be on the tours, but we didn't anticipate that they'd be so difficult to please. And their criticisms seem to extend to all parties. Some of them are even justified, but they seem to be the same irrespective of the tour. I'll list a few of them to illustrate the flavor:

1. “The food isn't good enough.” It doesn't matter how good the food is, it's never good enough.

2. “The tour guide doesn't know enough about what he (or she) is showing us.” The suspicion is that he's staying one page ahead in the guide book.

3. “There's too much time spent traveling and not enough seeing things.” What there is to see may be visible while traveling, and it was listed in the tour's brochure, but the passengers aren't interested in that.

4. “Other members of the tour are taking all the good seats on the bus and I can't see everything.”[iv] A good seat should be saved for them no matter when they come.

5. “We're not seeing what we paid for.” By and large the tourists know little about what they paid for and wouldn't recognize it anyway, and they ignore the reality that weather conditions may have dictated a change in plans, or that what they were seeing is better. If it isn't exactly what it said in the brochure they're being cheated.

6. “The tour isn't well organized.” This is a general complaint and may relate to anything – usually reflecting more about the complainer than the tour.

7. “There isn't enough consideration of the needs of the passengers.” At this point whoever is complaining tells the world of his own wishes and assumes that everyone agrees.

8. “There's too much (or not enough) time spent shopping.”

9. “They're going too fast (or too slowly).”

10. “There's too much wasted time.”[v]

It's usually the case that only a few passengers are dissatisfied, but they repeat their complaints over and over. They'll often speak about previous tours they took and how good they were, though it's hard not to assume that they did the same the last time they traveled. But most annoying is the fact that the complainers will bewail the lack of support they are getting. They'll consider their tour mates too timid to complain. It will never cross their minds that they might be wrong and that others might disagree. They seem to be trying to foment rebellion. And by doing so they make things unpleasant for the rest of us.

That's my biggest complaint – not the tour but a few of the people on it, the professional malcontents. They need to kiss the Blarney Stone and start to say nice things – even if they don't believe them.

Next episode: “In His Image” – Imagine that.

[i]          We also went to Israel but that's irrelevant to what I want to say.

[ii]          Fahrenheit. They measure in Celsius though, and 16 to 18 degrees was the usual high.

[iii]          More green, as it were.

[iv]         On some tours the seats will be rotated so everyone gets to view the sights from the front, back, and the middle.

[v]        Full disclosure: This is a complaint that I, myself, often have (and I'll list another soon) and it often results from the lack of consideration of other tour members who do not appear at the but or at other sites at the specified times.  They sometimes apologize for being late, but repeat their behavior later.

Come Fly With Me

 

 

Let me guess that it will be a generation. Or, maybe, less. Actually I think it will be less but I prefer to overstate estimates like this. After all, a basic change in society can't be rushed.ⁱ But it will happen. I'm sure of that.

It all started with the couch potato. No. I'm sure it started long before that but I'll use that vegetative citizen as my stepping-off point. Actually he did not step. That was the point of the whole thing. The remote control for his televisionⁱⁱ was all he needed to survive. That and his TV dinner of course. Movement needed to be kept to a minimum, and that was his way.

But other movement must be considered as well. Like travel. And, not to flog a dead horse, it's on the way out. We're approaching the end of travel. I don't mean completely. People will often move from place to place. Especially immigrants. But most travel in America, and eventually elsewhere, is likely to be on the way out.

Why do people travel at all? (I don't mean why do they go to the storeⁱⁱⁱ, but rather I'm thinking of the trips out of the neighborhood.) For business, to see family, to see sights, and to move. There's not much more to it than that. But with the economy as it is, and gas prices high,^iv and with the cost of commercial transportation and even private cars always going up, there's a decreasing call for tickets on the various airliners^v and trains. And with the high cost of gas it is becoming more and more prohibitive to drive. Of course you could take a cheap bus, but the number of bus accidents has been increasing recently as a result of their own cost-saving measures. No. It's cheaper and safer to stay at home.

And that's the origin of the “staycation.” Vacation time is increasingly spent at home because that's cheaper than traveling. As the song goes, you don't need more than you can find “Back In Your Own Backyard.”^vi

As for business,^vii there will always be some travel to demonstrate products and have a buyer touch them and try them out, but there is an increasing reliance on video conferencing and other similar techniques to negate the need for much other business travel. Many who formerly traveled to work now engage in work from home – by telecommuting. The cost of clothing is lower as are the expenses of the automobile, or those of other transportation previously required. There's a decreased need for expensive office space and the risks of travel are reduced, lowering the cost to insurers.^viii

Communications have had a major effect on how we relate to each other. I, for example, see my daughter, who lives thousands of miles away, more frequently than sons who live closer. That's because I visit with her (and her kids) almost daily via the internet, using my video camera and a free telephone line. I can recall the time when we made expensive long-distance calls. We kept them short because of the costs, but now they're free, and we can see our grandchildren as they are growing up. And they can see us. We're not the strangers we might have been. We still visit, but it's as much to be in a foreign country – to visit it – as to see them. It's nice to see them, but we've already managed to keep up on their activities.^ix So we use the visit more as a vacation – as sight-seeing.

What about vacations and sight-seeing? Will they last? Well the vacations will. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if our time off increases. Our own laziness will see to that.^x But the nature of vacations is changing. Since it is becoming less necessary to visit with family members,^xi all that remains is the sight-seeing, and it can't be too long before that is replaced by virtual reality.^xii It will be far cheaper and won't require sitting in uncomfortable airline seats or spending inordinate amounts of time on travel. Nor paying for the hotel or motel.^xiii They will be the basis of your staycation. There's nothing more comfortable than your own bed, and with a virtual reality vacation you won't have to leave it. 

Moving isn't likely to be a major reason for travel. Homes are difficult to sell, and more and more people are fixing up what they have rather than looking elsewhere. It may not be good for truck manufacturers and the moving industry, however we've made our bed and now we must lie in it. We can't afford to move it. Especially if we have nowhere to go.

The outlook for travel appears gloomy to me.^xiv I'm not suggesting that travel will cease^xv – only slow down. But I suspect it will slow down significantly. It may take time, but it will happen. And the transportation and travel industries will fight back. Airplanes will become far more comfortable and luxurious. Trains will be faster.^xvi Cars will be more intricately linked to automated guidance systems and to television cameras and radar, and they will become self-driving and parking as well as safer. Trips will take less time as well, with the automated systems avoiding traffic and other obstructions. But gas prices will continue to rise, and the cost of cars, as well as airplane and train rides, will also get higher and higher. The defensive actions will be only temporary helps. The long-term trend will be away from travel. It will cause a significant change in our lives and in our economy, but the trend is unstoppable. When travel industry stocks tank, don't say I didn't warn you.

Next episode: “An Era Is Ending” – And America will never be the same.

i     I'm not talking about the end of band concerts. I've covered that topic.

ii    We've really progressed. Now there's a remote control for almost everything except going to the bathroom. And that will come too. Be patient. Hold it in.

iii    Though this will be eliminated soon enough. I also don't mean that there will be an end of the rite of passage which involves teen-agers getting driver's licenses and their “freedom.” But don't ask one of them for a ride. You won't get it. No matter how many times you've taken him where he wants to go. 

iv    Actually they're much higher in other countries, but we don't consider them. That's not our problem.

v     And don't forget the cost of the extra baggage you'll need.

vi    Dreyer and Rose. Al Jolson is also credited as a writer – in fact the first one – but his contribution, if any, was probably minimal. The song was recorded in 1928, but probably written earlier.

vii    Read “money.” That will prolong some travel – for a while at least.

viii    Of course this also increases the pool of people available for work which will both increase the number of those out of work and lower the cost of labor. That's good for those who employ them, even if it's not optimal for the economy and the workers themselves.

ix     With communication improvements, letters gave way to the telephone (letters hardly exist anymore – certainly not the long, informative letter of the past), and the telephone to the internet. And now we make video calls over the internet. Science changes everything.

x      As it has to the remote control. Who wants to stand up to change channels? Actually we could provide additional jobs by hiring people to change the channels for us. But a remote control is cheaper.

xi    Except when we're looking for a free place to stay. Hotels are far too expensive. But we can stay at a relative's house because he's away, imposing on another member of the family.

xii    And that includes amusement parks as well. A virtual roller coaster ride will be just as exciting as the real thing, though it may be safer. And it can't be too long before a computer is hooked up to your bathtub so you can experience the joys of a water park without leaving home.

xiii    Unless you stay with family or friends, whose life you'll make miserable. They'll be happy to see you leave.

xiv    Actually, to those who make a living from travel. Not to me. I like to stay at home anyway, so my major benefit from more costly and complicated travel is to provide me with more weapons to hassle others.

xv    We still need road building to provide jobs and the highways to get food and other things to market – and to provide jobs for road builders and the manufacturers of vehicles. For a while, at least, the economy will protect travel because of a need for those jobs.

xvi    “Bullet” trains are already faster.