A Little Something for the Frequent Flyer

I know it’s hard to believe, but this blog of mine doesn’t pay my mortgage. I actually have a real job, one that requires me to travel a bit. One of my favorite things about flying is meeting the aviation expert on board. No, I don’t mean shaking hands with the pilot on the way out the door and offering a “nice landing.” I’m talking about the guy who is a retired aerospace engineer or flies planes for a hobby.

You know who I’m talking about – you end up next to this guy and for an hour he proceeds to tell you all about the aircraft you’re in and how cool the bigger jets like the 777’s are. All the while, you’re thinking, dude – all I know about this plane is that it’s too damn small and we’re sitting awfully close to each other. You’re sitting there, only dreaming of flying on a “triple 7” to Europe or Hawaii or somewhere cool, but the truth is, your world consists of lame lines on Southwest or a steady diet of Delta regional jets to places like Elko Nevada, Missoula, MT, and Twin Falls, ID.

So begins the struggle to disengage yourself from the one sided conversation. Your best strategy is sticking your nose back into the free copy of USA Today you received from the Courtyard by Marriott where you stayed the night before. As you do this, you realize it could be worse. You could be seated next to the really loud talker, the crying baby, sandwiched between larger passengers in a middle seat, etc. So you relent and let the guy ramble on for a bit and actually learn a thing or two about commercial aviation. I’m sure the knowledge will come in handy the next time you’re a contestant on Jeopardy.

Once you extricate yourself for good and finally make it back to the sports page, you realize life isn’t so bad after all. You’re glad to have your gig and doubly glad the recession hasn’t totally wiped out your company’s travel budget, forcing you to drive to the places you frequent. And best of all, you can’t wait for your next flight, so you can drop some aviation expertise on the poor sucker that will end up sitting next to you.