I am boot-horned into seat 37B at
31,000 feet, massaging numbness from my legs when I taste a wetness at the
corners of my mouth. It is a salty wetness and I realize that I am crying. In fact,
I am about to bawl.
This is embarrassing. My mind
shifts to overdrive, thinking of how to conceal choking sobs from my fellow
passengers.
Hide beneath a blanket? Airlines don’t
provide them unless you pay for them. Bury my head in a pillow? They no longer
hand out pillows either.
I am not wearing a hoodie so that’s
no help. Eye drops? Good idea but they are in a carry-on buried in a hopelessly
overloaded overhead bin.
I wipe away the tears furtively,
then pull myself together and question why I am crying on an airplane.
Studies confirm that people are
more likely to cry on airplanes than on the ground. A survey from Virgin
Atlantic found that 55 per cent of people admitted to being more emotional than
normal when hurtling through the stratosphere.
No one seems to know why. Some say
it could be the general anxiety of flying.
It is storming below so the flight
is rocky. Also there are recent stories about aircraft engines flying apart
because of metal fatigue.
Then there’s the crowded skies. Aviation data companies that
track all the aircraft in our skies report an average 9,728 planes, carrying
1,270,406 passengers, in the sky at any given time.
The lightest
day for air traffic in recent times was Jan. 1, 2017, when there were a peak 3,354
planes in the sky at the same time. The heaviest air traffic day was Aug. 5,
2016, when 12,856 planes carrying 1,590,929 people made radar screens look like
spider webs.
But I am a trained private pilot, and understand all this stuff
so it doesn’t make me anxious. Certainly not enough to cry.
Flight crews have observed that their passengers tend to cry
more while watching movies.
A survey by Gatwick Airport in London found that 15 per cent of
men and six per cent of women said they are more likely to cry watching an
inflight movie than at home.
However, I don’t watch movies on airplanes. The movie screens
now are in the seat back in front of you and the seats are so close that anyone
wearing progressive lens eyeglasses gets a stiff neck trying to focus.
I wouldn’t be watching today’s movie anyway because the guy
sitting next me says it is called The Shape of Water and is about a woman who
dates a fish.
There is speculation that being in a pressurized cabin at high
altitude affects levels of mood-regulating hormones serotonin and dopamine. The
different atmosphere sends the hormones a bit wonky and the tears begin to
flow.
But it’s not flying anxiety or rattled hormones that are
dissolving me into a puddle of tears. It’s nothing to do with the airplane. It’s all about getting to the airplane.
Today’s
airports are playgrounds for digital screens and torture chambers for
passengers. The screens surround you, grinning and chortling as they dare you
to approach.
There
is no avoiding them. You must approach. They control whether you get baggage
tags, a boarding pass, even passport clearance.
Only
a digital screen can permit you to move into the next line of airport captives
snaking its way through other banks of digital screens, humming scanners and
silent hidden cameras. Seen from above the captives are unbroken lines
wandering wearily through a maze in search of the Pharaoh’s Tomb.
The
reward at the maze exit is a corridor of food booths where the traveller can
replenish the 10,000 calories burned during the airport passage. The $38 for a Panini,
small salad and a bottle of water is enough to make anyone cry.
The airlines say they are committed to reducing passenger
stresses. Some are even considering sleeper berths for larger airplanes on
longer haul routes. Just crawl in and sleep away the stresses and bad memories
of the airport passage.
Sounds sweet but you can bet the prices will have you bawling.
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