Do you like to fly? I think it’s OK. I enjoyed it more when I was younger, but the enthusiasm that I used to feel as a scheduled flight drew closer has given way to something in between indifference and mild disinclination in my old age. I believe part of the reason for that is an increase in my all-around awareness of society’s realities, business, and people – there are a lot of selfish people with a lot of dangerous agendas floating about, a lot of companies…including airlines…that will go to great lengths to save money, and a lot of individuals who are just too rude for words. All of those things together have combined to make my opinion about hurling high through the air in a metal tube at great speed less favorable than it once was.
Recent news stories about in-flight altercations and disruptions don’t help. A few months back, a United Airlines flight had to return to Dulles after two people entered into a physical confrontation over a seat that one of the parties felt was reclined too far. A few months before that, three Orthodox Jewish businessmen began a vocal, demonstrative prayer ritual aboard an Alaskan Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles that caused great consternation on board the plane. Just a few days ago, a passenger aboard a Southwest Airlines flight traveling from LA to Salt Lake City was arrested for interfering with a flight crew when he began throwing peanuts and pretzels at a flight attendant after being told he couldn’t smoke his electronic cigarette. These are but a few examples, and there are too many more instances like these that I could cite.
Here’s the deal: Even if you are OK with flying, no one, except a crazy person, is ever forgetful of how vulnerable we all are when that plane is doing its thing high above the clouds. Plane flights are no place on which to put a priority on freedom of expression. As a matter of fact, the only people I care to see assert themselves in that environment is the flight crew, as a function of keeping maximum order.
The advent of the economy plane ticket hasn’t helped. One of the downsides to great deals in ticket prices is that nowadays flying is too often like taking a bus trip, and so a lot of the people we encounter in the seats next to us are those who are more at home on a 10-hour Greyhound trip in the dead of night than on a flight aboard United Airlines. In days gone by, gentlemen air travelers would wear suits, and ladies were equivalently attired. Now, tank tops, shorts, and flip flops are all too common, as are the representative behaviors that go along with that.
All any of us ultimately wants when we get on a plane at Point A is to land in one piece at Point B. Along the way, I don’t need to be well-fed, luxuriously comfortable, or indulged in my efforts at grand personal expression. Accordingly, anyone who becomes overly demanding about any of the aforementioned is a threat to the well-being of the rest of us, so do us all a favor…just sit down, shut up, and quit moving.
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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).
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