Watch your aft

The life rafts are in the two big overhead compartments aft, or behind, the wing exits.

     Flying is not the special event it was when we'd take a plane to visit my grandmother in New York City, and I'd be escorted up to the pilot to receive my golden Pan Am wings. But it still is a journey, a process of imagined significance, and I try to pay attention. Even to the pre-flight safety spiel, which is tuned out so routinely by regular air travelers that it starts with a little plea to pay attention.

     I do. Pay attention, that is. Set aside my magazine, look up from my iPhone. Out of politeness for the human being standing a few feet in front of me, and from a personal interest in small differences.
     For instance, I noticed last week, flying to Phoenix, that the attendant now stipulates that only one alcoholic beverage can be ordered at a time, and no outside hooch can be consumed on the plane — no doubt a reaction to the rising number of booze-fueled assaults on flight attendants as our social fabric frays to a pile of thread and rags. The obvious solution would be to end sale of alcohol on flights, but that would leave money on the table, and airlines just can't do that, which is part of what has wrecked air travel. So it can't be that big of a problem.
     I also noticed a particular nautical term — "aft" — I'd never heard before in the pre-flight talk. Mentioned twice, in reference to where we might find life rafts. In two overhead compartments, "aft of the wing exits." Not that there would be much call for rafts between Chicago and Phoenix. And the raft storage lockers were obvious enough, hanging from the cabin ceiling above the aisle. Still, I wondered how many passengers knew that "aft" refers to the area of a ship toward the stern, or back, the place where the tiller or propellers would be, as opposed to "fore," which is the bow, or the front of a vessel. I'm all for using uncommon words; just maybe not in the emergency instructions. "Disembark expeditiously from the aircraft..."

     It might be worth mentioning that when the airline industry began, a century ago, its terminology was borrowed from sailing. Thus airports and airliners, not to forget pilots (a pilot guides a ship into harbor), galleys, cabins, etc. Planes were initially given names, like ships, and christened with a bottle of champagne broken over the propeller hub. 
     Though to me, the most striking thing about the flight was the facial expression of the attendants. A general exhausted, zombified look as they droned the snack choices — fruit snacks or a 30 calorie quinoa chocolate wafer — to one row, then the next, then the next. Staffing is a problem everywhere — our flight home was delayed an hour while a replacement pilot skedaddled over from Los Angeles — and I figure airline attendants are more overworked than ever, not to forget the aforementioned abuse. 

      That also used to be different. It didn't happen often. But there used to sometimes be a sparkle, a smile, a very human interchange between air traveler and airline staff. Or at least a realistic facsimile of such a thing. I suppose the day will come soon when we fly standing up, hanging on support bars, with beverages shot into our mouths from spigots. So I guess the thing to do now is to appreciate the human touch, such as it is, while it's still here, sort of. Human staff are expensive and won't be around forever.