Fear of Flying

Told to go left

You board ahead of everyone else, you enter the plane and are told to go left, beyond the curtain that separates the elite from the down trodden.  You sit in your lazy boy sized seat and stretch out your legs. You’re asked whether you want a grooming kit, a snack and then the drinks start flowing.  We all hope to some day experience first class air travel and possibly have a personal assistant to book our travel.  The reality for most of us is that we search for weeks or months for the cheapest airfare and cheap hotel rooms. Of course we could save ourselves some grief by booking a complete vacation through Air Canada Vacations.  There’s a comforting aspect to clicking a few buttons and having everything taken care of, especially if planning a first time trip to, let’s say China or somewhere else where we might be over stimulated.

Roughing it

I think some of us like the satisfaction of roughing it. We go right when we board, we stand around until all the people who boarded before us store their luggage and get comfortable.  Then we cram ourselves into the little seat and fold ourselves up into an uncomfortable origami position.  If we’re lucky we’re traveling during the summer when we wear less heavy clothing, in the winter, figure out whether to keep the coat on or find a place to store that as well. If you’re fortunate enough to have the window seat you can just get comfortable and fall asleep.  If you’re on the aisle you can look forward to getting whacked in the shoulder a few times by the drink cart and your fellow passengers making their way to a too tiny bathroom. Middle seat? forget about it, unless you like to sit still or are one of those people who like to rest your head on a stranger when you sleep, I can pretty well guarantee you will not be enjoying the flight.

Turbulence and air sickness bags

As you can see, flying isn’t my favourite thing to do and I understand there are some airlines you want to avoid all together if you can, no I’m not going to name them here.  But I never understood the people that despise Air Canada.

You hear a lot of lost luggage stories and cranky employees but the times we’ve flown with them we’ve never had any problems (knock on wood).  On our last overnight trans-atlantic flight with Air Canada, everything went as planned. We got on, Tim fell asleep the minute he touched the seat and I watched movies, trying to keep my mind busy. When daylight broke, it was time for a quick breakfast.  Before we knew it, we were landing in Rome,  there was a bit of turbulence and some passengers were busy throwing up.  The flight attendants helped as much as  they could gathering air sickness bags for passengers that needed more than one and calming the others.

Flying off the handle

It would be easy to turn the whole thing into a negative experience if we judged the entire flight on the last twenty minutes.  But the reality is, the experience was fine, the staff were helpful and kind and we got to our destination.  What more can you ask for? I’m sure if you lost your luggage or the flight was oversold, delayed or canceled it might get your goat but you won’t get to where you’re going faster by flying off the handle.

This post is brought to you in collaboration with Air Canada Vacations, the opinions are our own.