94 LISTENER NOVEMBER 5 2016
LIFE
A
h, the joy of international travel. The hotels,
restaurants, galleries, sights, plus the plane
trip there and back. Actually, the last two
are not that joyful. I’m writing this after
about 30 hours in the air and living in airport
world. Long-distance air travel is a little like having
children: it’s painful and traumatic at the time, but
eventually you forget that bit and try it again. Fool.
Yes, I made the mistake of turning right at the
front door of the plane, not left, and so found
myself down the wrong end of an Airbus. Business-
class air travel is fantastic, I’m sure, but when it
costs the price of a small car or an outbuilding in
Auckland, you ask yourself why would you do it?
The short answer is to avoid feeling like this.
Sleep deprivation has its advantages, especially
if you are a North Korean intelligence officer
seeking to reduce a prisoner to a slobbering
discombobulated wreck. However, for folk
of my age, it is a discomfiting prelude to
advanced old age in some hideous institution.
No sooner are you trapped in a tiny inner-
row seat and off the ground than you feel the
overwhelming need to pee and are forced to
arthritically try a gymnastic exit across the laps
of the two people between you and the aisle.
You are force-fed small unappetising meals,
crushed up against other inmates so that you
cannot extend your elbows to try to cut up
your tucker properly, not helped by plastic
cutlery designed to stop you hurting yourself
or others.
The food and altitude have a ghastly intesti-
nal effect, provoking another crawl over your
neighbours’ seats to visit the loo. After a few
hours, you find yourself fighting for breath in
the cloying atmosphere. You cover yourself
in the threadbare blanket but cannot sleep soLike childbirth, long-
distance air travel is one of
those things that we should
know never to repeat.
Fear of ying
Take out a new
mortgage, sell
the car, beg
your children
for the money –
just ly business.
STEVE BOLTON
BILL
RALSTON
watch television for hour after hour,
soon forgetting what’s on the screen.
Worse, you ask for a second glass of
wine, but your uncaring carer never
brings it.N
o, I didn’t fly Air New Zealand
- perhaps that was my mistake.
But I still blame the national
carrier. I spent hours online looking
for cheap fares to London and even-
tually found the lowest. Admittedly,
it was a Third World airline whose
planes have, occasionally, plunged
from the sky. But I convinced myself
that lightning never strikes several
times in the same place and booked
it. A day later, Air New Zealand wil-
fully reduced its airfares to the UK
so that its prices were lower than the
one I’d bought. Bastards.
I know people have many theories
about how to make economy air
travel more comfortable. Take a sleep-
ing pill, don’t eat too much, don’t
drink alcohol, stay hydrated, wear
granny socks to contain your veins
and prevent your feet swelling. Noth-
ing works.
My advice is fly business class.
Take out a new mortgage, sell the
car, beg your children for the money
to do it – just fly business. They
have fully reclining beds, so you can
actually sleep like a human being.
Kind waitpersons smile and give you
champagne on take-off. Your food
actually tastes like real food. There
is much less risk of infants kicking
and screeching in the seat behind
you. Your luxury surroundings give
you a comforting feeling of smug
superiority.
I once flew with Virgin Atlantic,
which had named its premier service
“upper class”. The plane even had a
masseuse on board to ease your aches
across the Atlantic. Yuss!
Excuse me – I have to lie down now
because I think I’m hallucinating. l