THE ONLY WAY TO FLY by Thomas Shess, Editor, PillartoPost.org
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| Meet Martha with Etihad Airways. She will show you to your three-room penthouse suite aboard Etihad's new A380 flying flat that's renting out at $21,000 per flight. |
ADD TO BUCKET LIST—Seeing the news item in the Los Angeles Times about a Middle
eastern based Etihad Airways' soon to be announced inflight amenity, a newly configured three-room penthouse
suite aboard its latest A380 mega jet (for a mere $21,000 per flight), brought
back precious memories. www.etihad.com
Back in the day, as my latest unfavorite
expression goes, six years of my career was spent as a magazine editor for an
inflight magazine. The late, great publication,
PSA Magazine, was the monthly the
seat pocket monthly for a hugely popular and successful San Diego based
passenger airline. As a new editor in
chief, fresh out of San Diego State’s English Dept., my job was to create
general interest magazine fare for the publication that catered to a vast
audience, mainly business travelers between PSA hubs San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento
and San Francisco.
Because
Pacific Southwest Airlines during its 50 years of operations before being
bought out by USAir at the end of the millennium operated within the boundaries
of California, many of the larger airlines lobbied me to write about travel
destinations.
Carriers like Pan Am, British Airways, Air New
Zealand, AeroMexico and even Hughes Airwest sent me invitations to journey off
(on their dime) to visit destinations they wanted to highlight. PSA, the carriers perceived, was a giant
feeder airline for its national and international routes, and therefore not
competition. PSA was viewed as an ally
and I was friendly flyer.
So, it wasn’t
unusual for Air France or UTA, for example, to invite me to fly free (as PSA Magazine’s
chief editor and travel writer) to far off lands.
It wasn’t lost on my fellow travel media junketeers that Air France wanted us write
about the beauties of Tahiti and the romance of the Southern Hemisphere. When I asked if the junket was a public
relations effort by the French to mitigate the dark clouds of bad PR generated
by France conducting atomic bomb testing in the warm waters of the South
Pacific, I was stripped of my hot face towelette privileges and shunted back to
coach. I was never invited back.
Yet, during
that South Pacific junket, a favorite memory arose. While bouncing along a jungle road in a
vintage new New Hebrides bus, Clete Roberts, a then veteran broadcaster with
Channel 2 in Los Angeles, reboarded the
bus after we toured a “must see” tourist attraction that had locals jumping off
trees with vines attached to their ankles.
Had we known at the time we were witnessing the age of the bungee jump.
But jungle bungee wasn’t the news broadcaster Roberts brought on board the bus. “I have some breaking news, ladies and
gentlemen, he added to the humidity with his stentorian tones, “Vice President
Agnew has resigned.” After the gasp and
awe subsided, it gave rise to just how remote 1973 was because the news reached
us two days after Spiro bit the dust in D.C.
Clete revealed his sources for the info as a local English language
tabloid.
I was not the only employee of the inflight magazine
mill, accepting free travel rides, my publisher often accepted junkets as part
of the care and feeding of current and future clients. The publishing company
that employed me was a vendor to airlines wishing to have an inflight magazine
but not wishing to add to its employee roles.
East/West Network was created.
Each contract varied, but in a nutshell the deal was the airline got the
magazine for free and accepted a small percentage of the advertising
revenues. East/West Network was hugely
successful for a generation. It
eventually folded when all the clients began to merge with themselves and the
need for magazines declined.
But one
blustery winter day, I was dispatched from Los Angeles with no advance notice to fly to
Boeing’s 747 plant near Seattle. My
publisher had forgotten about the trip and I replaced him. There was no time for packing. I was whisked to LAX with instructions to
put all my travel needs, including new clothes on my expense account. I was wearing a new wool suit that I wore
that day because Southern California was having its week of bad weather per
annum.
When I
arrived at the Seattle airport, I was greeted by one of the PR persons for
Singapore Airlines, who promptly delivered me to the appropriate Boeing hanger. There I
hopped aboard a magnificent 747 for the first time. In the Mid-70s, a jumbo jet the size of a 747
was still rare. I was in awe.
Soon I was seated in the upstairs first class lounge
of the double deck jetliner. I was the
only member of the travel media aboard.
With a bemused smile I introduced myself to the ten stewardesses
assigned to me. The flight to Singapore
to Seattle would have made a poo-bah blush with such royal treatment.
Half way to
Hawaii, the member of the airline PR staff informed me I could interview the
pilots about the 747. I asked for a
tour of the huge jet but was informed every inch of the wide-body jet was
filled with spare parts. The only area
resembling a passenger airline was the configuration I was assigned to.
My
opportunity for an interview began in the relatively spacious cockpit. “How much test flying time does a 747 get
before the plant releases the jet to the airlines?” At that point the captain looked at the
co-pilot. “How long has it been since we
took off?”
The
Co-pilot replied four hours.
“Four
hours,” the pilot replied.
I assumed
weeks. It was a big plane. But four hours of testing was not comforting
to this aeronautical novice. “Once all
the green lights on the computer appear, the plane is good to go,” the Captain
said. I don’t remember any of my other
questions.
And, the
stewardesses were not all for me. They
had been in Seattle for training and were returning home. I never let that fact get in the way of a
good story.
But, I do
remember landing in Singapore in a driving rain. Rain at the equator I realized falls straight
down in huge drops. I was drenched and
all I remember was the strange stares I received from the population I
encountered from the airport to my hotel on Orchard Road. Evidently, the aroma of wet wool was foreign
to the locals. Quickly, I visited the
tailor that the concierge recommended and we negotiated an emergency overnight
wardrobe for me. Afterall, I was on
expenses.
But if being treated like royalty went to my
head. It did. So when I received an invitation to join
British Airways shakedown flight on the brand new Concorde jet, I felt it was
my due. The invitation included a
morning breakfast at Heathrow in the VIP lounge; take off at 8 am, then lunch
in Beirut (before the city fell) and back to the Mother Country in time for
afternoon tea.
I arrived
at Heathrow via a BA 747 from LAX. First
class was elegant but it didn’t match my Singapore Airlines treatment on the
delivery flight mentioned above.
Afterall, I was used to ten stewardesses attending to me and me alone.
Once, at
the British Airways desk, I reported in.
I was standing in the VIP line and was greeted with polite nods. I announced my arrival for the Concorde
flight. The staff
at the counter politely suggested I was standing in the wrong line. “Isn’t this the line for the Concorde
flight,” I asked.
“Yes, it is
(no sir attached you’ll notice) but this line is for the VIP members of the media.”
Read Babawawa or Walter. You’re with the
provincial press and the line for you is outside in the rain on the tarmac next
to the small tram that carries the paying customer’s luggage.”
I did make
it aboard the Concorde, but not in first class.
I’ve remained wounded at the Heathrow slight ever since.
I’m now
hoping that Etihad Airways will soon invite me to fly the new flying penthouse
from JFK to Abu Dhabi. Etihad is the
official airlines for the United Arab Emirates.
And, I’m confident my grandsons and I could give the prestige class penthouse
a good test drive.
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