Flying the skies

One of the guilty pleasures of sheltering in place here in the San Francisco Bay Area has been the opportunity to check out various YouTube channels. In particular, one subset of these has been a group of folks who share their travel experiences. While travel by rail has been part of this, the ones I tend to focus on have been the airline travel fans. (I won’t call them geeks, foamers or fanatics out of courtesy; I would do the same thing if I was traveling as they do.)

Over the years, I have managed to travel by air a fair amount. Trips into and out of the airports here (including San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and even Concord’s Buchanan Field a couple of times) have often taken me to Southern California (including Los Angeles, Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, Orange County and San Diego).

Among those airlines I traveled with California were PSA, AirCal, Southwest, United, US Air, Reno Air and Jet Blue. Flights beyond the Golden State have taken me to Honolulu, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake, Denver, Dallas, Baltimore, Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Tampa and Chicago. Those included flights with some of the previously mentioned carriers as well as Frontier, Delta, American and ATA.

Internationally, I can count my flights on one hand. In 1959, we flew across the Atlantic from Germany back to New York before traveling cross country in a new Renault sedan delivered to my father’s mother in Reno. In 2001, it was a flight on Delta from SFO to Frankfurt via Cincinnati. The return on that was supposed to be aboard Delta from Munich to JFK in New York and on to SFO. However, arriving at the counter for check in, we found that flight had been canceled and instead made a direct flight on Lufthansa.

So, while I don’t travel every week, a couple of flights here and there each year is about average for me. And while I don’t enjoy all of the elite goodies from frequent flyer clubs or miles, I like to think of myself as more than a novice passenger in the skies.

Many of the flights shown in these online adventures take advantage of First Class or Business Class for travel, and on rare occasions, even in coach with the rest of us mere mortals. On the whole, the folks doing these videos are a good bunch, but at times I wonder why they leave home and family?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy watching these travels. Just as I enjoy taking a trip from point A to point B with a side trip to Point C and back to point A all over again. I have done my share of business travel but leisure is more my style. I tend to be not so worried about missing connections or late departures/arrivals. Travel is always an adventure in one way or another, so why not roll with the obstacles as they come?

In the brave new world of post pandemic travel, I expect we all will get to adapt to new rules and regulations. Just as we did in the post 911 era, things will be a challenge at times. Yet, I expect wanderlust will make it’s siren call and we will answer, wanting to see the globe, get out and about taking it all in again, even if cautiously to start with.

For those willing to brave the new world, one has to imagine airlines will do their best to entice us to go places again. Low fares will likely be one of the easy inducements, along with extra miles for those frequent flyer programs. After all, investments in aircraft just taking up runway space parked somewhere can only be written off so long. Already, a few airlines have started retirement of older aircraft, especially the Boeing 747’s. And more than a few airlines internationally have begun entering bankruptcy proceedings.

It certainly won’t be the same as it was before. But I hope that when it settles down, I will be back out there flying the skies at some point soon.