Flying from anywhere to anywhere can be exciting, especially perhaps if you’re not what we might call a frequent flyer. There’s a sense of anticipation that comes along almost as soon as you get onto the plane. You find your seat, you listen to the safety warnings and you unwrap the first of many sherbet lemons, then you tell yourself that the flight will be over in no time so you might as well enjoy it.
Except, of course, it won’t be.
At some point during your flight, that little voice in your head will start to tell you things. It will remind you that your rear end has gone numb already, that it’ll be ages before the food and drink trolley reaches your section and that you’re bored, bored and more bored. Whether you’re on your way to Manchester, Miami or Melbourne, you’re already finding the process an ordeal. You brought two magazines and three books with you, but you don’t feel like reading any of them. You have a playlist available on your phone, tunes especially chosen for the journey, but you’re not in the mood for music. You end up twiddling your thumbs, lamenting the fact that you have NOTHING to do.
Needless to say, this is an even bigger issue for those on long-haul flights. London to Sydney can take almost 24 hours to negotiate, including perhaps a short stopover in somewhere like Dubai, Singapore or Hong Kong. The time spent on planes can be around 20 hours, sometimes more, so if you’re bored senseless and you’re only going over the northern coast of France, you’re in for a very long day indeed. If you’re one of those lucky people who find it easy to sleep, it won’t be too bad. If you’re not, you’re in trouble.
The sky isn’t the limit; there are no limits
Now, the Big Book of Blog Writing will tell you that it’s a good idea to write something positive in paragraph four, but I’ve got two things to tell you. Number One: there is no Big Book of Blog Writing, I just made that up. Number Two: this is a situation that might just worsen for you, because long-haul flights are only going to get longer. We can already fly direct from London to Perth (a total of more than 14,000km), but it probably won’t be long before we can reach Sydney in a single flight. How numb will that rear end be then?
Currently, the longest non-stop commercial flight runs from Singapore to New York, but this is one of those records that are unlikely to remain in place for much longer. Planes which can get more mileage from their fuel payload are becoming increasingly common, and in the aftermath of a global pandemic it seems people are more intent than ever before to reach out and see the world. Those bucket list trips to Sydney, Auckland, Beijing, Tokyo and more are becoming a reality. In short, the world is opening out like a new flower.
If you ask a hundred passengers about the prospect of direct flights to far-flung places, the chances are fifty of them will welcome the chance to enjoy a stopover while the other fifty will bemoan the fact that there’s a stopover. As the old saying goes, one person’s ceiling is another person’s floor. Thankfully, if you’re a passenger you can have a choice, so pick the one that matches your needs.
PR specialist Aneela Rose founded Rose Media Group in 2004. We work for clients in a range of industry sector, including aviation.
