Aluminum Tubes
I just flew from Malaga, Spain to Boston, USA via Paris, France. That is a whole lot of distance in one day to spend in an aluminum tube.
Let me first say that Air France sucks. To start with, I was not allowed to change the ticket of my youngest son to an indeterminate time in the future, but before the date of intended travel, I had to pay them $200 to change the ticket for another date certain in the future. If that would need changing, another $200 would be needed. So, he stayed home.
On the day of travel, I was informed that my return leg from Malaga would be changed: the noon flight was cancelled and I was rebooked on the 7am flight. To get to the 7am flight, I had to leave where I was staying at 4am. For those of you who know Spain, restaurants don't even open before 8:30 or 9:00pm, so that means to have a meal the night before, you have to put up with 4 or 5 hours of sleep to get to the airport.
The 7am flight was absolutely full. Now consider that I had already paid for my other son's passage, and was "eating" the ticket, so an extra seat was "mine." On the way to Malaga, the seat was empty and permitted a more civilized passage. But on the way back, they sussed that the traveller was not coming so they sold the seat again. Pustibules. So the "gent" that plonks himself down in the seat next to me is one of those elderly types (60's?) who reckons that he is something of a big cheese (probably the golf captain at his country club in North Carolina). He is indeed "large" and decides that both armrests are his and that he needs to spread his legs wide -- so wide that mine are forced askew to avoid rubbing knees with him ... in front of my seat. Why is it that certain men express such a posture? I know that it drives many women berserk to see that legs-wide spread in action, as if to say, "I gotta a big one" (or perhaps they wish to convince others of it).
So this space-hogging jerk (hereinafter "Frank")and his execrably dressed wife across the aisle confer loudly about their Paris plans ... has anyone told senior Americans that baseball hats (especially the cheesy ones with the plastic snaps at the back -- one-size-fits-all) really should not be worn inside, and that on the senior cranium it looks particularly stupid? Ever notice how they sort of wear them "high" so that the whole shooting match looks perched like some redundant turd on their pate? Frank, in between sounding like a complete idiot mispronouncing practically every French placename or word, is busy alternately trying to hack up a piece of lung or snort down a snot spree. Putain, merde! Does this repugnant creep have drug resistant TB or something? For Christ's sake, use a frikkin tissue or something.
Which brings me to an observation: airlines should hand out nano-particle masks upon boarding their aircraft. Those aluminum tubes are nothing more than cruel and unusual exercises in taking a bunch of healthy people and cooping them up with the walking dead to see how many of the healthy they can infect as a result of re-breathing contaminated air, and disease ridden encrustations on the seats and other hardwear. Frank should be in the ICU about now with a lobe of his right lung dangling out his left nostril.
If the "bird flu" strikes, that is, if it mutates into an easily passed virulent and infectious version of H5N1, then the last place on Earth you will want to be is cooped up in an airplane with Frank or any of his replicants/stand-ins. You will become infected. The rank, stagnant swill that passes for air in commercial airliners is not acceptable under the best of conditions. When half of an airplane is doing its best to ensure that the other half joins them in communal suffering, any virulent pathogen is going to have a field day. Heck, ignore H5N1, the resistant TB that is out there is already threatening enough, or SARS. And the average Joe/sephine doesn't give a poop whether you live or die anyway. So they are going to travel, sick or not. And hygene is not foremost in the average mind when considering whether to rub one's eyes or not after touching almost anything in a standard airliner. To be properly protected, you'd need a Hazmat suit ... I can just see someone trying to pass through security in a bio-secure hazmat suit. But ... if we start seeing the emergence of real contagion risk, I don't see how any sensible person would NOT take precautions. A bad outbreak of "pathogen X" could kill off the airline industry. Imagine an Airbus 380 -- some 600-800 people on board. No thank you. Uh-uh.
Back to Air France. You owe me for the money you made selling my seats. And it is perfectly clear why you cancelled my noon flight: you could load up an Air Europa flight at 7am and make a few more Euro-francs, no matter that the seats are tighter together than Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins. No, most people would rather have enough room to fully inflate their lungs, even though to do so is to risk the virus du jour.
So a 6 hour lay-over. And the terminal you sent me to in my original boarding card was wrong. Espece des cons!! And then, because you screwed up the building of your new terminal (it collapsed almost immediately and is still not safe for occupancy)you insist on busing us out to our plane somewhere in the parking lot behind the Monoprix in St Denis. Is it cheaper to use buses? Boarding sure takes longer, so in the absence of terminal ramp space (note how intra-France travel still merits a ramp, but intercontinental travel is bused?), I guess that we should be issued shooting sticks to perch our sorry asses on while we wait for the bloody bus to return to take another load? And how about some shopping worth a damn? Huh?
One thing, though. Most of Charles de Gaulle airport is a wasteland of decent food, but in 2E, there is a "Paul" bakery ... some of the best baked goods anywhere. Bar none. Oh, the pain au chocolat I had. AND in 2F there is a brasserie that has a fruits de mer component in it. Belons, Fins de Clairs, Petit Gris, the whole works. As good as any you will find in Paris. At the airport. Who'd a thunk it? The steak frites is excellent too. But it is the only place in any of the terminals that provide the saving grace of France and the French: real food. So a dozen Belons later and a 1/2 bottle of Muscadet, the lay-over faded into a minor inconvenience, notwithstanding the conasse at the gate. Hein?
Let me first say that Air France sucks. To start with, I was not allowed to change the ticket of my youngest son to an indeterminate time in the future, but before the date of intended travel, I had to pay them $200 to change the ticket for another date certain in the future. If that would need changing, another $200 would be needed. So, he stayed home.
On the day of travel, I was informed that my return leg from Malaga would be changed: the noon flight was cancelled and I was rebooked on the 7am flight. To get to the 7am flight, I had to leave where I was staying at 4am. For those of you who know Spain, restaurants don't even open before 8:30 or 9:00pm, so that means to have a meal the night before, you have to put up with 4 or 5 hours of sleep to get to the airport.
The 7am flight was absolutely full. Now consider that I had already paid for my other son's passage, and was "eating" the ticket, so an extra seat was "mine." On the way to Malaga, the seat was empty and permitted a more civilized passage. But on the way back, they sussed that the traveller was not coming so they sold the seat again. Pustibules. So the "gent" that plonks himself down in the seat next to me is one of those elderly types (60's?) who reckons that he is something of a big cheese (probably the golf captain at his country club in North Carolina). He is indeed "large" and decides that both armrests are his and that he needs to spread his legs wide -- so wide that mine are forced askew to avoid rubbing knees with him ... in front of my seat. Why is it that certain men express such a posture? I know that it drives many women berserk to see that legs-wide spread in action, as if to say, "I gotta a big one" (or perhaps they wish to convince others of it).
So this space-hogging jerk (hereinafter "Frank")and his execrably dressed wife across the aisle confer loudly about their Paris plans ... has anyone told senior Americans that baseball hats (especially the cheesy ones with the plastic snaps at the back -- one-size-fits-all) really should not be worn inside, and that on the senior cranium it looks particularly stupid? Ever notice how they sort of wear them "high" so that the whole shooting match looks perched like some redundant turd on their pate? Frank, in between sounding like a complete idiot mispronouncing practically every French placename or word, is busy alternately trying to hack up a piece of lung or snort down a snot spree. Putain, merde! Does this repugnant creep have drug resistant TB or something? For Christ's sake, use a frikkin tissue or something.
Which brings me to an observation: airlines should hand out nano-particle masks upon boarding their aircraft. Those aluminum tubes are nothing more than cruel and unusual exercises in taking a bunch of healthy people and cooping them up with the walking dead to see how many of the healthy they can infect as a result of re-breathing contaminated air, and disease ridden encrustations on the seats and other hardwear. Frank should be in the ICU about now with a lobe of his right lung dangling out his left nostril.
If the "bird flu" strikes, that is, if it mutates into an easily passed virulent and infectious version of H5N1, then the last place on Earth you will want to be is cooped up in an airplane with Frank or any of his replicants/stand-ins. You will become infected. The rank, stagnant swill that passes for air in commercial airliners is not acceptable under the best of conditions. When half of an airplane is doing its best to ensure that the other half joins them in communal suffering, any virulent pathogen is going to have a field day. Heck, ignore H5N1, the resistant TB that is out there is already threatening enough, or SARS. And the average Joe/sephine doesn't give a poop whether you live or die anyway. So they are going to travel, sick or not. And hygene is not foremost in the average mind when considering whether to rub one's eyes or not after touching almost anything in a standard airliner. To be properly protected, you'd need a Hazmat suit ... I can just see someone trying to pass through security in a bio-secure hazmat suit. But ... if we start seeing the emergence of real contagion risk, I don't see how any sensible person would NOT take precautions. A bad outbreak of "pathogen X" could kill off the airline industry. Imagine an Airbus 380 -- some 600-800 people on board. No thank you. Uh-uh.
Back to Air France. You owe me for the money you made selling my seats. And it is perfectly clear why you cancelled my noon flight: you could load up an Air Europa flight at 7am and make a few more Euro-francs, no matter that the seats are tighter together than Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins. No, most people would rather have enough room to fully inflate their lungs, even though to do so is to risk the virus du jour.
So a 6 hour lay-over. And the terminal you sent me to in my original boarding card was wrong. Espece des cons!! And then, because you screwed up the building of your new terminal (it collapsed almost immediately and is still not safe for occupancy)you insist on busing us out to our plane somewhere in the parking lot behind the Monoprix in St Denis. Is it cheaper to use buses? Boarding sure takes longer, so in the absence of terminal ramp space (note how intra-France travel still merits a ramp, but intercontinental travel is bused?), I guess that we should be issued shooting sticks to perch our sorry asses on while we wait for the bloody bus to return to take another load? And how about some shopping worth a damn? Huh?
One thing, though. Most of Charles de Gaulle airport is a wasteland of decent food, but in 2E, there is a "Paul" bakery ... some of the best baked goods anywhere. Bar none. Oh, the pain au chocolat I had. AND in 2F there is a brasserie that has a fruits de mer component in it. Belons, Fins de Clairs, Petit Gris, the whole works. As good as any you will find in Paris. At the airport. Who'd a thunk it? The steak frites is excellent too. But it is the only place in any of the terminals that provide the saving grace of France and the French: real food. So a dozen Belons later and a 1/2 bottle of Muscadet, the lay-over faded into a minor inconvenience, notwithstanding the conasse at the gate. Hein?
posted by Zaphod at Friday, March 31, 2006
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