How prosciutto ruined economy class for me

Fly regularly and you probably have a wonderful on again-off again relationship with your airlines of choice. I used to fly considerably more, most of it long haul, but maybe 80% of it was on charters so I never got sucked into the whole mileage thing too heavily.

At the time I donated (along with most other people travelling with the F1 circus) my miles to charity. I took the lounge access and very occasional upgrades, and cancer patients got to fly for treatment. Very much a win-win.

The last year or so has been a little different. I’ve flown across the Atlantic 12 or 13 times, it’s one of the downsides of living 6000 miles from aging parents.

This has meant a couple of things, first I have no vacation or sick leave left. Seondly, I’ve spent enough money that I’d better get a Christmas cards from both Delta and British Airways.

My relationship with Delta has been the rockiest, I’ve been pretty loyal to them and in return I’ve been bumped, had flights cancelled and even in one case my booking cancelled by mistake.

Most domestic flights have been the usual economy-class nightmare. Surrounded by screaming kids whose granola mum wants then to be free to “express themselves”. While sitting next to someone on the “cabbage soup diet” whose task for the day is to make the entire airplane smell like cabbage. Awesome.

Then there are flights like yesterday when everything is forgiven, Seattle to Houston.It’s a moderately long flight, about 4 hours or so. They texted me the day before the flight confirming an upgrade, then I arrive at the airport and am shown to the “express security line” where I walk up to the x-ray machine with no wait.

Then I’m greeted by name on the aircraft, the attendant asks what I’d like for breakfast once we are airborne and given a freshly squeezed orange juice prior to taxying. The seat is huge, legroom wonderful, only 12 people share the lav and there is no puddle of urine on the floor. This is what flying should be like, and I guess would be like if I decided I wanted to travel more with work, but I don’t.

There was one exception to the usual economy class nightmare late this summer. I was flying from Seattle to London via Atlanta once again. It started off badly when my cell rang at 2:15 on the morning of my flight, it was a robotic voice telling me that my flight had been changed. I now had an eight hour layover in Atlanta rather than the 90 minutes I’d booked. Worst still it’s the second time it’s happened to me this year on this route.

I needed to be in London and did not have much of a choice at that point, but when I commented on it at Seatac they gave me a little bit of a compensation. Including a pass to the lounge, $20 food voucher for Atlanta and a $100. OK, they are sorry, but I still have eight hours in a major airport that does not have a single decent bookshop (that is criminal).

However they have a stonking lounge that pours very liberal G&Ts, has a nice line on spicy snacks, fast internet and a place I can charge my laptop. I know how I’m whiling away the eight hours in Atlanta, I’m getting plowed and watching movies from iTunes. I’ll admit it’s not much of a plan, but it’s the best I’ve got.

In the cold light of sobriety my iTunes selections ranged from the awesome (A Bridge Too Far), through the interesting (All Time Low) to the very questionable (Dinner for Schmucks). It shows a clear trend over time, the more G&T, the dodgier my choices.

Eventually I got to flight time, I’m in the back and for a moment get all optimistic I’m getting a pair of seats to myself, boarding look almost done and there no one next to me. The second to last person walks down the aisle, dare I hope? Yessss… She walks past!

Next thing I have a tap on my shoulder, the woman who just walked past me is there. She introduces herself and says her friend is coming, has the aisle seat next to mine and would I mind giving her friend the window seat. I’m in the happy drunk stage and say OK, one of my better decisions.

Staggering down the airplanes comes the person who I will come over the next eight hours to know as Jennifer. A combination scary cat lady, cool tourist and rambling drunk. I gathered quickly that she had been stuck there for a few hours with her friends in one of the bars and was well on her way to being shitfaced, and she was not going to let the small matter of being on an airplane slow her down.

But wait there is more! She’s got snacks, lots of snacks and she is sharing. When I say “snacks”, it’s way more than that, that word is not doing it justice. There is cheese, crackers, olives, more cheese and, and and… This is awesome!

She seems determined to stay in “the zone” all the way to London. I get up to go to the bathroom, I come back and there is a couple of G&T’s sitting on my tray table. Jennifer is pretty determined I’m going to stay happy drunk with her.

This is awesome and those 8 hours were as close a economy class has ever come to being good. The down side is she has completely destroyed flying in the cheap seats for me. It’s a disaster, never again on a flight is someone going to sit down next to me and pull out garlic stuffed olives and tell me to enjoy. Great food, G&T and fun, drunk conversation. Thankfully my brother was picking me up in London.