Fly away

 Fly Away

 First published in Column 8, 24.10.90

 I don’t travel by plane very often – getting away twice this year is unusual.

So when I have six take-offs and six touchdowns – all because I wanted to fly to Hamilton and back – I have ample opportunity to note the changes.

In the past, for example, didn’t one of the stewards used to read that safety measures speech over the intercom while the others went through the routine?

Now Air New Zealand has a recorded male voice doing the job. He reminds me of those irritatingly smug voiceovers at the end of a television programme: the ones that tell you what’s coming next – when you already know.

It’s like having someone reading the newspaper over your shoulder out loud.

What really got me about his little speech was the last line. ‘In the unlikely event of an emergency, listen to your stewards. They know what to do.’

The condescension in the tone implied one should remember that all flying passengers have the mental age of 6-year-olds.

Perhaps in the unlikely event of an emergency we do regress to the 6-year-old level. Fortunately, in the course of my six take-offs and six touchdowns, there was no chance to find out.

Plainly the recording has had a detrimental effect on the stewards or – pursers, as they have reverted to calling them.

One young fellow, obviously bored with having to go through the motions yet again (and never having the chance to put into practice all those emergency techniques he’d learnt in steward school) was a second or two ahead of the voice.

He pulled down the gas mask before we heard it would happen; he put it over his mouth and nose before we were informed why we should do so; and he had everything packed away again while the voice was still finishing.

I expected the intercom to comment – ‘We know what to do – just give us a chance to finish, mate!’

The other side of flying in which there has been an improvement – though I doubt if folks doing a weightwatchers diet would rejoice – was that between every stop you get a ‘light meal.’

Morning tea was served between Dunedin and Christchurch, where I arrived towards lunchtime. Unaware of the food deluge to come, I decided to get a snack at the cafeteria, in case they starved me for the rest of the trip.

I finished up with four ‘light; meals. And the last thing you feel after all those is light.

Perhaps there are three reasons for all this food.

A more practical person than I am suggested it’s to keep up with the competition.

I prefer to think it’s to give all those highly-paid stewards – there were four on one hop – something to do. After all, no one gets air-sick these days – unless like a friend of mine they spend too much time in the Koru Club waiting for a delayed flight.

My favourite reason, however, and I suspect it’s the real one, is this. In the event of an emergency those ‘light’ meals – all three of them – would keep you weighed down in your seat.

Then the stewards can deal with you effectively. You’ll be too heavy to leap about and panic.

This column, one of the first to be written but not the first to be published, has dated considerably. Regular light meals on short hops within the country are often missing these days. No longer do we have a ‘smug’ voiceover; now we have supposedly humorous skits done by minor celebrities on the little screens in front of us. But the hosts and hostesses (as I think they’ve reverted to calling them) still do the demonstrations, even though no one is watching.

As for no one getting air-sick. It does still happen. I came back to Dunedin airport some while ago and because of a fault with the lights at the airport  - which had all gone out - the pilots couldn’t see where to land. So we circled and circled around the in the midst of a storm, bumping up and down endlessly. I just wanted to open one of the doors and jump out. But one unfortunate guy just across the aisle from me was sick, continually, and there was no sign of a host or hostess to help.