When it comes to flying, I'm definitely in synch with the B.A. Baracus school of thought. (You younger folks can look him up on IMDB.com.) All things being equal, I'd definitely rather go by train or boat. That said, even I have to admit that 36 hours to get from Edinburgh to Barcelona (Don't mock me I only looked it up; I didn't actually book the train/ferry combo.) doesn't make good time management sense, so, from time to time, I have to get on a plane. Actually, at anywhere between five and ten flights a year, I'm probably what you'd call a semi-pro airline traveller: somewhere in the healthy midrange between that poor soul who criss-crosses the country weekly and the retired couple who are boarding a plane for the first time since their honeymoon. In my experience, barring some freak weather pattern, the difference between a relatively painless trip and hours of teeth-clenching misery is usually the people. Here are a few people with the power to turn friendly skies foul. See if you recognize any of them.
1. The "professional" traveller. He's the airborne equivalent of that guy who occupies the last barstool on the end at your favourite bar, sneering at all the "tourists" who stop in for a drink. The "professional" wants you to think that he's entitled to special treatment because he's flying for business rather than pleasure. Don't be fooled by his act. My uncle used to fly almost daily for business, and he racked up more than a million frequent flier miles at one point. If this guy in the seat behind you travelled as much as he claims, well, he wouldn't be in the seat behind you because he'd have the points to upgrade to first class. So don't let him bully you into sitting bolt upright for eight hours so that he can open his laptop screen all the way. Tell him to get a Netbook or wait until he lands. Oh, and don't take his guff about how "he" supports the airline industry with all his regular flights. Tourists do their share to keep United and its ilk in business so don't let Mr. "Professional" make you feel like a second class citizen.
2. The "lifeguard." You'll recognize this member of the cabin crew the moment you see her. She has one job and one job only: to ensure the safety of your fellow passengers. She partied for a week when the federal government passed all those stringent safety guidelines because it meant she could stop pretending to be nice to all those annoying "travellers" who keep insisting on boarding her planes. No joke: I once flew for five hours with severe period cramps and nausea in the company of a "lifeguard" who wouldn't let me go to the bathroom during mild turbulence even though I thought I might puke. I counted four women on the cabin crew, and yet she swore that they didn't have a single Ibuprofen among them. The "lifeguard" carries those little zip-tie restraints in her breast pocket and is just itching for a reason to use them, so don't give her any lip.
3. The not-actually-very "tall guy." I sit next to this guy a lot. He's pretty normal sized, but he has this odd perception of himself as having exceptionally long limbs in need of extra elbow and leg room. He'll flop his arms into your seat space and stretch his legs until they're virtually straight, all the while complaining about how airlines discriminate against "tall guys" like him. I'm always tempted to point out to this guy that 5' 9" isn't even tall enough for a career as a male model, much less a basketball star, but I'm not sure I want to see one of these body dysmorphic types have a full psychotic break at 40,000 feet.
4. Generic "aisle seat occupant." Is it just me, or are there people in this world who deliberately book aisle seats and then snore from takeoff to landing, keeping their row-mates barricaded in their seats? I don't mind much if it's a short flight, but I've seen people do this for the entire duration of trans-Atlantic journey. Seriously, if these folks have some kind of altitude-induced narcolepsy, I'm pretty sure they could get a doctor's note that would guarantee them a window seat on long-distance flights. So I must conclude that this is some kind of perverse power-dominance issue with roots in unpleasant toilet training memories.
5. "Musical Chairs Mother." This is the woman who boards the plane with a brood that have been assigned scattered middle seats throughout the plane and then attempts to guilt trip her fellow passengers into swapping more desirable seats so that her family can be together. I have a couple of issues with this behavior. First, families with scattered seats generally means standby flying, so these folks are getting a steep discount for crummy seats and then attempting to trade up at no cost. Second, we're generally not talking about toddlers being dispersed throughout the plane unsupervised. I fail to understand why a fifteen-year-old boy can't be trusted to sit four rows away from his mother without setting fire to the seat backs. At that age he's only going to ignore her anyway, so why not let him play his Gameboy in peace?
6. "Bad Movie-of-the-Week Passenger." Somehow, I only seem to run into this guy when the security lines have been extra long or the pilot is warning us of bad weather ahead. "Bad MotW"is generally dressed in some combination of camoflage and unwashed denim, together with the requisite black knit cap, and he sees the need to arrange and rearrange his duffel (it's always a duffel) in the overhead compartment half a dozen times during the flight. He only sits when directly warned by the cabin crew, and he pops up to lurch down the aisles the moment their backs are turned. He may have an iPod, but he's more likely to be reading a well-thumbed book with a cover that's worn away (no doubt his copy of "101 ways to survive a nuclear winter"). Regardless of the actual temperature, he is sweating profusely. Either he smoked some bad weed right before boarding or he's being paid to "gaslight" some rich guy's soon-to-be-ex-wife, but the end result is that he manages to scare the crap out of everyone on board without ever doing anything extreme enough to get himself removed from the plane.
7. "Patient Zero." I have plenty of sympathy for anyone who has to fly when sick because I've had to do it myself. I can't think of any head cold miserable enough to make me cancel my flight to Fiji, so I'm willing to make concessions. But there are limits. I once flew from Paris to New York next to a guy who I'm pretty sure was dying of cholera. Seriously. His face was kind of blue-ish around the eyes and lips, and he had this wet, slurpy cough that he didn't bother to cover with so much as a handkerchief (no doubt he had one, but it was already soaked in blood). I spent most of the flight breathing into my sleeve and rushing off to the bathroom to wash my hands. Honestly, if you've caught the plague, go to your local embassy there are medical evacuation planes that will get you home without harming the rest of us. Oh, and if you just have a bad cold that kind of looks like the plague, here's a tip: 12-Hour Afrin and liquid Robitussin. Take em 30 minutes before boarding time. It's my patented system for flying sick without grossing out my seat mates. You can actually impersonate a healthy person for up to six hours this way.
8. "Seat Shifters." These passengers travel in groups of two or more, and they are usually somewhere between 16-30 years old. Apparently, these folks are all home schooled and independently wealthy, and therefore lack any kind of meaningful experience sitting in one seat for more than 20 minutes at a time. So they shift, and they shuffle, and they rotate taking the opportunity to swap with every one of their travel companions at least once per hour. This would be annoying enough if they were just moving themselves, but "seat shifters" need to pack out all their stuff for each move (after all, you never know when the "lifeguard" will finally flip out and strap them into their seats, so they need to transport two books, three magazines, an Ipod and last Sunday's edition of the London Times wherever they go).
Well there are more, but these are the frequent fliers, so to speak. Fortunately, most are warded off by a fully charged Ipod, some studded goth bracelets (really helps keep the "tall guy" out of your personal space), and a copy of the "Worst Case Scenarios: Flying" manual. Good luck.