Flight plight

What a week...been to Raleigh, NC and Washington DC for Spring Break. We are all jet lagged and dumbstruck after the 16 hour flight back to JoBurg. What an ordeal. Thankfully our lack of TV in our ordinary life means kids are more than happy to watch movies back-to-back for the flight. Even the same movie...my son watched Ice Age 3 three times. And as they are kids, they can sleep in any cramped space.

Not so with me. I've come to the conclusion that economy class in most airlines is designed to put you into your place - socially speaking. Think you're a jet setter....get an intercontinental flight and see what sharing a toilet with 200 other people for 16 hours is like. Try to eat the food which has fallen below the standards of a British Rail 1970s sandwich. You used to be able to board a flight and get drunk with the full cooperation of the cabin crew. Now they treat most passengers with distaste and only appear when some arcane flight regulation allows them to.

And as for the ground transportation, the numbers they squash into the buses to the terminal would be illegal outside of the hallowed ground of an airport. And luggage - Ha! The last trip we took someone rifled through our suitcase, breaking the lock and leaving behind an empty camera case in the process presumably from some other poor victims valise.

And we paid close to USD 8,000 for this privilege!

Air travel is certainly not the only area of life where customers are treated with such contempt. Just think about what the banks have been up to. But where is there any redress for such systemic disregard? It infuriates me.

Anyway, back to our new African normality. Kids back at school, husband back at work and me back on the track. Reduced mileage (26 laps today) as I try to re-engage my muscles.