(AND EVEN APPRECIATE) A FLIGHT :

In my drinking days, I loved flying. I could indulge in an unlimited flow of alcohol that started with preflight drinks in the terminal lounge and continued onboard courtesy of smiling Singapore Girls. Flying also gave me an opportunity to indulge in some of my most devastating character defects: impatience with long queues at airport security screening and immigration, pride when sitting in business class, envy when sitting in economy, and anger over delayed departures. Any of these things could engorge my ego – especially delays. I didn’t understand how the airlines could so grossly undervalue me and my schedule. There were a lot of things about flying I couldn’t control, such as the weather, mechanical failure, and the maddeningly uninformative “late arrival of the incoming aircraft.” What I didn’t realise then was that the world was full of people, places and things I couldn’t control. Commercial air travel just made that truth more apparent and immediate. As a sober traveler, I appreciate flying for different reasons. Rather than agonise over imperfections and inconveniences in air travel, I marvel at how well the whole system works. It was not so long ago that ”American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk…. Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not people said God had reserved this privilege

to the birds? Only thirty years later; the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing.”* Nowadays, most people take flying for granted. Every day, airlines transport millions of unappreciative passengers safely and comfortably at altitudes where the atmosphere is too thin and cold to support human life and land all those ungrateful people safely at destinations that would take them weeks or months to reach if it weren’t for the airline industry. Commercial aviation is made possible not only by technology but also by teamwork. In order for the system to work, each individual in the airline industry must do his or her job and not try to control everyone else’s. If a flight attendant wanted to run the whole show by trying to arrange the luggage in the hold, maintain the aircraft engines, control air traffic, and pilot the plane, the flight wouldn’t come off very well. As a passenger, I now view my job as remaining calm and mindful of the wonders of technology and teamwork that enable modern air transportation. This helps survive a seventeen-hour flight from Singapore to San Francisco not only sober but also grateful.

* Excerpt From: AA World Services, Inc. “Alcoholics Anonymous.” iBooks. ~Pablo