Who else is with me?
Lets Take back Air Travel
When you have been on the planet as long as I have you would remember carbonated tickets.
As you were about to leave your travel agent, oh sorry I forgot you have no idea what a travel agent is.
A travel agent was a wonderful person who lived in a small office come shop. You would have decided to take a trip to your cousin in Outer Mongolia and off you would trot to the high street there in-between the green grocer and the butcher (just Google what a green grocer and butcher are!) would be your travel agent. One of those little bells would tinkle overhead as you entered and you were greeted with a cheery “Good morning Mr Client where are we off to today” You would then spend the next 30 to 45 minutes working out your itinerary. Your agent suggesting a south facing room as when she stayed in said hotel the views from the balcony were amazing. A week later you would pop back in and your agent would hand you a booklet of carbonated vouchers for your trip in a wallet with duty free vouchers, bag tags etc. Your travel experience had begun clutching your wallet of tickets, in your hand you hurried off to your tailors to order a new safari jacket!.
Now all that is gone we go online and interact with a animated figure called “Sally” who can assist you in your booking. Yeah right!. Then when you have struggled through the booking online you receive a email with a PDF attachment that is your ticket “Have a Nice Day!”
And whilst we are mourning the death of the travel experience lets make another thing quite clear when I board a flight anywhere I don’t want to feel like I’ve been morphed into an episode of Glee. I don’t want to sing along with the flight attendant (that I actually think did a couple of lines before boarding I mean nobody is that happy!). I don’t want to celebrate someone who I have never meet birthday with a round of that song. I just want a nice quiet flight. And what is with the airlines making the Safety video, the most important aspect of instruction to passengers in the event of a disaster, a comedy show that will later appear mocked and ridiculed on youtube!!
To re visit the good old days watch the now cancelled tv show Pan Am ahh the good old days…..
Ah Pan Am - when I was at LAP I did some duty in Pan Am warehouses - great people. Their discount was such that they flew to Frankfurt for weekend shopping as they could tank up in First Class.
ReplyDeleteWas on top of main terminal one day and we saw this Pan Am landing at fighter base Northolt across the valley. Captain was slightly off course - he was talking to Heathrow Tower and they were saying they couldn't see him but he still landed. They had to take all the seats out to get it off the short runway....