MWF 2010 authors on… air travel
As lots of authors are flying in to Melbourne, and the festival is about to begin, here is the last in the ‘MWF 2010 authors on…’ series. As always, click on their names for info on their festival appearances. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series!
It is my first flight.
I am 11 months old. We are at Essendon airport. In those days you got to walk out onto the tarmac, right up to the aircraft. All your relatives could come up to the plane and wish you goodbye. We are on our way to Canada. We are going away for a long time. We will stop in Sydney, Honolulu and Vancouver. When we get off the plane in Toronto my father is waiting on the tarmac in the blistering cold. I haven’t seen him for six months. I don’t remember him at all.
Someone ought to write a book on air travel etiquette for international flights (unless it’s already been done and I missed it). It could include such helpful hints as: smile at the person/people sitting next to you, but not too warmly; bring along a blow-up pillow to avoid leaning on some poor stranger’s shoulder; if you have a window-seat, visit the loo before the lights are dimmed for the ‘night’. Other suggestions welcome.
I developed a bad fear of flying as a result of one very bad flight from Melbourne about 15 years ago in which the plane circled Sydney for a long time, unable to land because of bad weather, and in my memory it was actually hit by lightning but maybe that just can’t be true. Since then the fear has receded – I guess I’ve been up and down enough times in a plane by now to have beaten it into my mind that I probably will survive. It’s still a good excuse to enjoy a few hours on Valium, although that has become a real luxury now, something I only do when I travel without my son (international flights with a small child are a whole other story). I am a compulsive eavesdropper so I love the opportunities a plane provides. There’s nothing like the view I saw once, the moon in a night sky on one side of the plane and dawn breaking on the other.
‘On another tip, another trip, another plane/
I think of life and I wonder will it be the same.’ – ‘Hemingway’, Omar Musa, 2009
Omar Musa “Hemingway” (Dir: Tom Spiers) from MRTVIDZ on Vimeo.
Feel free to share your own responses to the topic, or to the authors’ responses, in the comments.
Posted on 26 August 2010, in Author info and tagged air travel, Carol Bacchi, flights, flying, Kirsten Tranter, MWF authors on, Omar Musa, Sally Muirden. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Melbourne Writers Festival blog 
Carol
etiquette?
try these
don’t look around the cabin in case you make eye-contact with a male passenger
don’t touch your husband in any way
don’t go to sleep in case you lean on anyone (see above)
don’t speak to cabin attendants unless questioned
don’t expect the be let off the plane if you are diverted to another destination (at the whim of the airline and without notice, by the way). You’ll sit there for the duration
that’s me traveling on PIA.
first flight? age four after a children’s birthday party at which I had eaten a quantity of prune mice (prunes with liquorice tails and almond ears). Threw up all the way.
Been flying all my life after living 25 years in various European countries and the USA, visiting all over the world and now Pakistan. Scariest flight? The leg from Singapore to Sydney that never left Singapore airspace as the crew came into the cabin and recruited the heftiest men amongst us. Circled for X hours until they had dumped the entire tank of fuel. Back hatch wasn’t shut properly and threatened to fly open (hence the hefty men.)
Best flight? London to Milan when I was 23 and was bumped up to first class on a Jumbo. “More champagne Madam?” and on board which I was mistaken for Jacqueline Bisset and begged for autographs.
The most annoying? The PIA one as above, diverted from Islamabad to Hong Kong instead of Bangkok. Forced to stay on the plane for an hour and a half (PIA policy that no one gets off even into the terminal during multi-stop flights for security purposes.) Arrived in Bangkok at 2.00am to start hand-processing by means of individual interviews to obtain personal details registered on carbon-copy forms. Turns out these details were required for the hotel voucher. Ongoing travel would be ‘sorted in the morning some time.’