Life at 20,000ft and why you should choose a window seat
Tuesday was another routine day and yet a unique day in my work life. At 5.30 am I woke to news of the terrorist attacks in Brussels. As it involved the airport, my work life kicked in, although our European editor, Victoria Moores, was well ahead of me and had posted the immediate news on ATWonline.com.
After organizing our coverage, I drove from my Virginia home into DC for the US Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit, where our senior editor, Aaron Karp, was already posting coverage of airline CEO presentations.
I joined the summit and filed some copy, starting with coverage of American Airlines’ CEO Doug Parker’s keynote speech, who joined others in condemning those who are blocking proposals to implement critical reforms to FAA and the US ATC system.
From there, I drove to Washington National Reagan, parked, and checked in for my flight to New York, where I am schedule for meetings Wednesday.
As I was entering my check-in info at a self-serve kiosk, I noticed three guys hanging around on the level above the main terminal (land-side). They were watching people check in and standing in the longer-than-normal TSA security queues below. They were also talking with one another – as if swapping observations – and one of them was holding some sort of package.
So I took the escalator down and looked around for a security agent. I saw an officer almost immediately and told him what I had seen. He thanked me and immediately made his way up the escalator where the guys were loitering. Which, in itself, was a courageous act given what happened in Brussels that same day.
I, meanwhile, joined the TSA PreCheck security queue. All security staff were professional and polite, and the process was both thorough and efficient. I boarded the plane; it took off on time and the crew could not have been more professional or friendly. The pilot stood in the cabin to tell us about the flight; the cabin crew was about as cheerful as it gets.
We took off from DCA and it was a beautiful, sunny late afternoon on an early Spring day. The sky was blue, crisscrossed with contrails. At 20,00ft or thereabouts, the US north east corridor sprawled out below in all its intricate, human and nature beauty. Factory chimneys, serpentine rivers, interstate highways and railways, half-moon residential cul-de-sacs, and acres upon acres of fields, green open spaces, and soft, undulating hillsides.
All this can be savored from a window seat in what is the safest form of transport, bar none. Even on a day when terrorists sought to alter our lifestyles by making us too afraid to fly.
As our plane approached Manhattan, it occurred to me that in the 21st Century ,“flying” is regarded as a luxury and privilege by an increasingly small minority. Astronauts view the Blue Planet in all its glory from outer space. Fighter-jet and helicopter pilots see it from terrain-hugging close proximity. But for the rest of us air travel mass travelers, getting from Point A to Point B is simply a question of how cheap and how quick?
But we are missing something. We mass travelers are the most privileged of all. For we can select to take the safest form of transport at the cheapest rates – per mile, inflation factored and relative to previous decades – that also throws in these amazing bird’s eye views of our countries and our planet.
It also occurred to me there may be a reason why manned, powered flight has its roots in France and the USA. Both countries are geographically diverse and staggeringly beautiful – a fact that bursts through with clarity when viewed from 20,000ft.
So on your next flight, be appreciative of all the people at the regulatory and security authorities, industry associations, aircraft manufacturers, airlines and airports who have made that journey as safe and secure as it can possibly be. And then, choose a window seat, look down and be in awe.