Fear of Flying and Madrid, 20.08.08

I’ve written before about my fear of flying; needless to say, it has not gone away. However, my new job does require a bit of flying, and in just over a year I have had to fly 14 times. So whilst I am still terrified of the whole crazy activity, now I am more numb to it than proactively shitting myself throughout the entire flight. I’ve even managed to reduce the number of pints I have to consume before I can even consider getting on a plane from four to two. Which is great news – partly because of the impact on my liver, and also because it doesn’t mean that I have to sit, cross legged, gagging for a piss throughout take-off.

I flew back to the UK yesterday after a few days abroad from work and expected the flight to be just about tolerable. Things appeared to be less good when I got into the taxi, and there was a lot of talk about the Madrid plane crash. The driver helpfully flicked the radio station. To another radio station that was broadcasting a report about the plane crash. And so it went on. For a long drive in the taxi (owing to the massive traffic jam) I got to listen to reports of death and destruction in the Spanish Capital. Even after I started listening to my MP-3 Player, I could hear the reports in the background. British Sea Power and The Arcade Fire against the backdrop of a major aviation disaster as I was being driven to the airport. It was, if you can pardon my French and my sarcasm, Pretty Fucking Special.

At the airport, I swiftly consumed a couple of pints, and made my way to the Boarding Gate. The plane was, inevitably, a little bit delayed. But that wasn’t a problem. I mean, I hate sitting on a plane waiting for it to take off. But it was much less of a problem than the person sat on the same row as me by the window.

He looked like a typical business traveller. His behaviour, however, wasn’t typical. He sat down, and started fiddling with his seat. He then started shaking the armrests, as if he was seeing how strong the chair was. After five minutes, a member of the Cabin Crew approached him and asked him to move – as he had managed to sit in the wrong seat. He point blank refused, and seemed to get slightly aggressive when challenged. Fortunately for the steward but unfortunately for me, the passenger whose seat he was in didn’t mind swapping.

Then, as we were about to take off, he started tapping on the window, like an irritating autistic. It was off putting. It was more than off putting. It was, given the circumstances, terrifyingly odd behaviour. I wasn’t sure whether he was testing to see how strong the window was, or whether he was trying to communicate with some sort of imagined gremlin that he was seeing on the wing. He spent a good ten minutes tapping at the window with increasing ferocity. It was reaching a point where I thought I should ask him whether he was ok – but I had no idea how to broach the subject with a man who appeared to be the very definition of mentalist. Fortunately, the man very suddenly fell asleep. And slept for the rest of the flight.

He only really woke up as we were landing. He looked out the window, and seemed faintly aggrieved to be awake again. As if to emphasise this grievance, he went back to sleep. He woke up again as the plane was taxiing towards the terminal. Actually, he was awoken again as the plane was taxiing towards the terminal by the shrill ring of his mobile (which had evidently been on throughout the flight). He answered his phone with a indignant “hello”. Evidently he got no reply, because he hung up his phone and then stared at the display for a moment. Then he peered around him, looking accusing and angry as if he was trying to work out which of his fellow passengers had woken him up by calling his mobile and then hanging up. Realising that no one was returning his glance, he elected instead to rest his head on the seat in front of him like a drunk sleeping against a wall in a train station.

And it was about then that the doors opened, and I was able to get the hell away from that fucking plane and that fucking freak. But as I charged through Gatwick, desperate to get my bag and away from the frigging airport, I was more than a little conscious that my fear of flying had got a lot worse over the course of that day.

I suppose the moral of the story is this – you can’t do anything to stop the reporting of plane disasters. They are tragedies that need to be reported. What you can do, as a passenger on an aircraft, though, is have some empathy for the other passengers on your flight. And with that in mind, it would be best for the sake of everyone on the flight if you didn’t behave like a total cunt.