Up in the air

On Friday I found myself browsing the airline websites just because I was having withdrawals of visiting the actual websites. The familiarity of typing in codes and dates. The weighing up of cost vs travel time. Seeing if going a day earlier might save a fortune. At least every month for more than 15 years I've booked a flight. Sometimes 7 or more in a week. I've had gold statuses that turned out to be useless, thousands of airmiles unspent, thousands of hours in the air, refined my excellent jokes going through security. Dedicated whole periods of my life to bagging upgrades, reroutes, early flights home. I once got moved to first class because i was a man sat next to an unaccompanied child which was against policy. I've been downgraded too. I've taken long ways round because "they have a better business" and jumped on economy flights to home because i couldn't be bothered to wait for tomorrows club class. Missed connections. Cancellations. Booked my flights on the wrong day (and once, both on the wrong day and at a different airport). I've perfected my intro line to cabin crew "...and my name's Jonna (big smile), pls also let me know if there is anything i can do to hep YOU". (they nearly always then ask in hushed tones "are you crew").

Once the lady in the Swiss air check in said "Happy Christmas Mr Sercombe" before I even showed her my passport. I'd been at that desk too many times. I love air travel. I love the escape. I love the new places. I love the new people. I have "homes" and routines in countless cities: Favourite restaurants, running routes, gym's I've been to so often i know the price and the locker codes.

Ridiculous highlights include

• Anytime you are showering at 30,000 feet on an A380.
• Being "Stuck" for a week in LA because of the Volcano.
• Every hot tub at the Virgin lounge before the realised hardly anyone packs trunks in their hand luggage and did away with it.
• Any and every time a flight involves a bed at the right time of night
• Going upstairs for the first time on a 747
• Using the Amex reward to take the family in first
• Realising it's a terrible idea to take the family in first/Business and getting us all back in Economy
• Every kind word by cabin crew. How they do that job so politely is probably the 8th wonder of the world. Or 9th.
• When I accidentally left 12 pairs of scissors in my hand luggage but was running late and insisted "there's nothing in there" to security.
• Planes that have a row of single seats.
• Taking a limo bike from a keynote in London at 19:45 to catch a flight from City at 20:25 for an important meeting in Europe next day, and KNOWING i was going to be fine.
• Landing in Hong Kong and taking a jetboat to Macau and then running for a regional flight into Vietnam so I could arrive a day early and go for an adventure with Nathan.
• A limo meeting me once on a runway.
• Any moment when I remember that this is NOT the world I grew up in and that's what makes it all so unbelievably fun.

There isn't any point to this blog. It was just a post that got too long. But now I'm here I'll just say this. People demonise business. People demonise the airlines. Life without travel has been wonderful for a season. Demonising any industry doesn't really work. Turns out those "terrible banks" that everyone blamed for the financial crisis kinda come in handy for... banking. Pure and simply: Flying is an out of this world luxury that our ancestors could only dream of. It's close to magic. That you can go see a friend in the US for a couple of hundred pounds after a few hours travel is INSANE.

Demonising people or businesses misses one key point. We could ALL do better. We ALL have, at times, selfish or greedy motives. We ALL make decisions that impact the environment. That certainly includes me. The airlines and the plane makers make our worlds many degrees more awesome. As such I consider them generally brilliant.

Post Covid I'm going to fly again a great deal. I might not even "carbon offset". If I do I'm not going to virtue signal. I'm going to book those flights. (Sorry Environment) Celebrate. (so are you at some point by the way, so don't hold it against me) Get a deal. Bag an upgrade. I'm going to revisit the hot tub in the Marriott at Calgary airpot for $20 during a few hours layover. I'm going to blag my way into the Raddison Gym at Zurich. Listen to the terrible house band in the Ramada Airport Hotel Shanghai. I'm going to use unusual routes to prioritise quality sleep over time traveled. I'm going to offer to fly an hour later to go a class better when things are overbooked. I'm going to harness every bit of patience i've ever had to never ever complain to anybody, or put any pressure on airline staff. I'm going to cannily challenge rude passengers, joke with security, watch films in airport restaurants. I will get a Starbucks in a very large number of cities. When the world reboots so much will be different. For some of us it's already changed forever. Yet the lure of getting over that horizon. Skimming above the crowds. That is irresistible.