Remember the Days When Flying was Fun?

September 30th, 2009

My father lives in Ontario, and in my younger years I used to fly out two or three times a year to visit. As I grew up I never forgot the excitement that came with going to visit my dad- the flight to and from was almost as fun as the reason for the visit itself!

So, unfortunately, it’s with a cold, cruel tone that I write this. The irony is not at all lost on me, either, but that doesn’t make it any less unfortunate.

Paranoia Induces Overregulation

I believe that modern-day air travel is absolutely ridiculous, and this was made crystal-clear to me when a child that was sitting behind me asked to see the cockpit - something that I used to do regularly when I flew as a kid - and was denied by the flight attendant. I can’t even completely explain the wonder and amazaement that I used to feel when I entered the cockpit, with it’s big windows displaying the horizon so triumphantly.

Looking around, I used to wonder what every button, switch, and dial did. It was a fantasy of mine to one day fly an airplane and find out. In fact, one of my prevailing memories as a kid was a pilot explaining to me how their radar worked: “this is our radar, it tells us where other planes are. Sometimes a plane will ‘ping’ us, and to show that we’re nice guys, we’ll ‘ping’ them right back. It’s kind of like playing tag, except 40,000 feet in the air”.

Now, you can’t even stand within three feet of the cockpit door during a commercial flight. How… overzealous.

I Believe in Safety… To a Point

I never had a problem with flying, ever. Now, there’s some irrational fear that exists within me that causes me to be anxious and leery before each flight that I make. Given that I fly, on average, at least a dozen times per year this is obviously a feeling I really don’t want to experience.

Now, I can’t even take a bottle of water on an airplane thanks to a terrorist plot involving liquid explosives. Of course, it’s no problem at all if I want to spend $3 mid-flight and purchase one. I’m all for safety, but this seems to be a little over the top. Realistically speaking, in nearly 100 years of flying we are now locked down to the point where something that was once a leisurly activity is now a chore- something that post people just shrug off and ignore until they get to their destination.

I want my freedoms back, as a consumer and as a Canadian. I want to be able to enjoy flying in the same capacity that I used to. Most importantly, I want flying to step down from its pedestal and come back down to earth. There is no reason that we can’t be safe and secure without involving being padded down, stripped down, and humiliated before each and every flight.

The average person won’t have a problem finding reasons why the indsutry is in peril. Why can’t the industry?

Tags:airlines, airport, terrorism

About the Author

Cameron Martel is interested in anything automotive, technology, and of course, video games. Cameron has been a member of beyond.ca for nearly four years. He is an affiliate marketer by trade and a gamer by definition. When hes not working or playing games, you can find him at his favourite Calgary restaurant.

2 Responses »

Tomaz on October 1st, 2009 at 2:37 pm:
I am with you brother!

The cockpit visits were the first thing I remeber that sparked my interest in flying. It’s very dissapointing that such an experiance has been taken away.
Chris Elyea on October 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm:
For my first flight, I actually got to sit in the cockpit the whole way! Kids are really missing out these days. All of my friends used to bring their plastic wings to school after vacation. It was their souvenir from visiting the cockpit on the flight. They won’t even give them a cockpit mockup at the airport to play with for fear that it will be used to train terrorists. There doesn’t seem to be any effort to make flying fun any more. Surely they could come up with something for the kids.

As an engineer, I like to minimize risk, so I’m not going to complain about the security requirements. I do completely agree that they have made air travel much, much less enjoyable because airport staff treat you at best like a suspect and often as if you’ve already been convicted. I saw a woman get yelled at (the officer even went so far as to address her as “young lady”) and have her phone taken away for texting – the sign only said you couldn’t talk on your phone, it didn’t say anything about texting, but I judged it was not the time for chivalry and kept quiet.

I had to show my passport three times to get to the plane. My carry-on liquids were limited to a 29-ml bottle of hand sanitizer inside a Ziploc bag. All my luggage and carry-on bags went through the X-ray machine (and my shoes – it was a flight to the U.S.), and I walked through the metal detector when directed to do so. I had to use one hand to hold my pants up because I’ve given up wearing a belt when flying – the buckle sets off the detector. Yet they still had to randomly select me to be manually frisked. Yep, at random - that’s what they told me. I saw them pick a guy out of the other line, too. I’m no security expert, but if they’re using random searches to try to catch terrorists, they can’t have very much confidence in the rest of the system, can they? That’s what bothers me – if I’m going to be subjected to all this, I’d like to think it has a reasonable chance of success.