I love flying

// February 27th, 2010 // Uncategorized

This morning at our regular Saturday breakfast hangout Brown Dog; I read an article in the weekend paper about how Air NZ started the process of creating a new cabin environment- profiling passengers as Simpson’s characters.

There were five character types that flew the airline. Two were the outspoken, sociable types. First was Marge Simpson, the traveler who wants to talk the whole flight and loves the glamour of flying. As Ed said, the type of traveler you love sitting next to . . . for 30 minutes. Then there’s Bart Simpson, a similar type but one who lives for the conversation and is not as concerned for the glamour of flight. That made up 39 percent of the airline’s customers.

The other side is the more introverted group. First, there’s Lisa Simpson who simply wants to zone out and get wrapped up in the inflight entertainment. Mr Burns is the one who knows exactly what he wants, uses Seat Guru, for example, and has the routine down. Mo Szyslak is the last one. He’s completely disengaged and just wants to get there. That group makes up over 60 percent.

I think I have a bit of all of these in me, but the Marge character matches my flying habits well, although I do use Seat Guru sometimes.

We recently had a DVT scare in our family, so I now wear inflight stockings and on my most recent trip, booked and paid a bit extra for exit row seats, which was well worth the $80 per segment, and gave me plenty of leg-room. It also gave me a good chance for some people-watching, and a couple of characters are described below.

There was a dottery old man, who kept using the loo, and every time he tried to open a clothing closet thinking it was the loo.

Then there was this crazy lady who wanted to not sit next to her husband, in fact she did not want anyone next to her. The patient crew told her to sit in her allocated seat for take-off and then once we are up she could move to a spare seat near me. Sure enough as soon as the seatbelt sign flicked off she bolted (neck pillow attached) to the empty seat. Later in the flight she went to the loo, neck pillow still attached and hair all akimbo. After she was done she decided to do some light aerobics in the space in front of me, neck pillow still attached. The aerobics involved touching her toes giving me a not-so-good view of her rear.

On my Perth-Brisbane flight I had an aisle seat, and a spare seat next to me, then a man at the window. When I was settling in before take-off he asked that when the plane lands could I get up quickly because he hates waiting to get off the plane! Sure enough as soon as the seatbelt sign flicked off he bounded over me and started pushing to the front. Funny thing is at the baggage carousel my bags arrived before his, and I gave him a nod as I was leaving.