Just arrived in Sydney, Australia after - and I can’t believe I’m going to say this – an enjoyable 14.5-hour plane ride from Los Angeles. 

 

Here’s my conclusion, flying internationally is what flying used to be, while flying domestically has become the bus trip of years gone by. 

 

My first plane trip took place in 1966. I was 7 and I flew with my grandma to St. Louis to visit my aunt and uncle. We dressed up, we flew with other dressed up people, and we ate a very civilized meal of silver dollars pancakes and sausage, which was served by a very attentive and nice stewardess. We left on schedule from National Airport in Washington, DC and we landed on schedule. The size of the plane fit the duration of the journey and I recall being quite comfortable. The experience was exciting and grown up. I loved it.

 

I still love flying because it takes you somewhere interesting but I cannot say that I love the experience of flying, at least domestically. I still dress up, relatively speaking, mostly so I can wear nice shoes and be able to take more pairs on the trip. Nice shoes mean high heels in my book, which necessitates a nice pair of slacks or skirt to round out the ensemble. I fit in with the other business travelers who are also dressed business casual or in other professional attire. As for the rest of the passengers, it’s grab bag of - I guess - comfort-ability. Mostly they look like they might have rolled out of bed just in time to make it to the airport. There are actually full-grown people who show up in what appear to be pajamas.

 

But other than my attire, the similarities to my experience in the friendly skies at age 7, ends there. I now pay for my luggage to the tune of $20 to $25 a bag. I am not fed and with some airlines I am even responsible for preventing my own dehydration, at a cost, of course. The passengers are nice enough but the airline employees are often bad tempered and in many cases they actually look worse the folks who rolled out of bed to make their plane.  Every plane is full and on short trips we are crammed into regional jets which can barely accommodate my 5’ 0” frame. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like for someone of normal stature. Even going cross-country, as I often do, we are on 737s or equivalent sized planes, which resembles being squeezed into a sardine can for nearly 5 hours. Maybe these tight quarters explain why they can’t feed us anymore. If belts expand even slightly, we might not all fit. The bathrooms smell bad and I’ve been on planes lately where at least one wasn’t working. I can’t remember the last time I took off or landed on time. This probably doesn’t coincide with what the airline might report as they’ve taken to pushing away from the gate on time so we can sit on the tarmac for extended periods of time. 

 

Now back to the flight to Sydney. First the plane was huge.  There were beds actually in the first and business class cabins! Even the coach cabin, where I hunkered down for the trip was roomier than I expected. I had my own little TV screen, which is so much better than trying to watch the communal screens they used to have. And, they fed me! Three times as a matter of fact. Dinner when we first boarded, a snack midway through and a full breakfast about two hours before landing. The food was actually pretty decent and, dare I say it, healthy. Every meal had something fresh as in fruit or vegetable and the portions were the size they are supposed to be not the typical super size meal that Americans love so well. Liquid refreshment was plentiful, and beer and wine was complimentary! 

 

Now here’s the remarkable thing – the flight attendants, the ones that are so dower on domestic flights, were nice. My expectations for politeness have been reduced over the years but when I said “thank you” they responded with a “you’re welcome.” When I smiled, they smiled back. Passengers were trying to sleep but I actually had the feeling that the flight attendants would have engaged in conversation with me, if I had tried. How cool is that? Oh and here’s another thing, they all matched and looked nice. Now they weren’t as nicely dressed as the flight attendants from the Asian carriers that I spied in the airport and hotel, but heck they looked pretty darn respectable.

 

So what gives? Why would the flight attendants on the international routes be nicer? Dress better? So I started contemplating a chicken and the egg thing here. Because we’re crowded onto smaller planes without food and drink and irritated from the get-go because we have to pay to bring luggage, are we mean? Do the attitudes of the flight attendants simply match our own? If you get up every morning knowing you are going to work and deal with a bunch of grumpy passengers do you stop caring about what you look like while your doing it?

 

Or are the best flight attendants promoted to the international routes? If that were the case though, wouldn’t the ones flying domestically be trying to get promoted and do a better job?

 

And here’s some $128,000 questions thrown in for good measure: If international air travel is like air travel of years gone by making domestic travel like bus travel in the air, does that mean that eventually everything moves down a notch? Will domestic travel eventually become something worse than bus travel? Will international travel end up like domestic travel of today with folks bringing picnic baskets as one of their carry on bags and thermos’ full of coffee? Will Virgin’s space flights end up as the only form of air travel worthy of dressing up and common courtesy? Or can the airlines figure out a way to bring back the magic that once belonged to air travel at a price where they are profitable and we can afford it? And while we’re asking questions here, does bringing a service to the masses mean that it has to include a reduction in quality?