Planes. Need I say more? Of course I do! Planes are those flying tin sausages humanity cooked up to blast through the air at 900 km/h (550 mph for those who can’t digest the metric system), packed tighter than a 19th-century orphanage and just as joyful. The marvel of aviation was born from one simple, unhinged human desire: defying physics while being served a curry in a microwave tray at 10 km in the air (that’s around 33,000 feet for people who wear size 14.)
They’re the only invention in history where people willingly pay hundreds to sit in a stress position with 300 strangers, all breathing in the same recycled farts. So here’s an honest review, not the TripAdvisor bollocks with five stars and “whimsical anecdotes.” Nah, mate, just the raw, unfiltered truth.
Now hold onto your armrest, which you better put back down before the steward drop kicks you back to the baggage carousel, because we’re about to take off.
The Arrival: Welcome to Regretland
You arrive at the airport a full three days early because your airline app advised you to and you’re too scared of being the twit who misses the flight because security was “busier than expected.” Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a line of people who all look like they’ve been cursed to wander in circles until they solve the riddle of the check-in kiosk, which is broken, as is tradition. You, however, are smarter than this!
So you approach a human, a bored airline employee who’s clearly contemplating walking into the engine, and you’re hit with “Have you checked in online?” – “I think so.” you lie – “Ok, weird, the system didn’t register it.” He knows you’re lying. The game is on. He taps furiously on a keyboard that appears to be connected to nothing while you stand there clutching your passport like a Victorian child holding a bread coupon.
“Please put your luggage on the scale”. The moment of truth. You struggle to lift your suitcase but manage, like a hopeful idiot, knowing full well that it’s above the llimit. The scale flashes red and the performance may begin. You’re on the floor, unpacking your life, flinging socks into your carry-on and taking your spare hoodie out. Shoes go in the backpack, you shove your deodorant bottle in your hoodie pocket and your laptop bag now contains a few underwear and a windbreaker.
Around you, strangers watch with a blend of fear and Schadenfreude. You’re sweating, swearing and struggling to close your suitcase back. Finally, your bag hits exactly 23kg, those 50 pounds of flesh that allow you to proceed. The agent proudly slaps on a tag like you just graduated and off it goes. You stand up, victorious, with a backpack now heavier than your emotional baggage. You pretend that it wasn’t humiliating and head to the second stage of your ordeal…
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Security: The Line of Shame
First obstacle passed, now the moment of truth: security. It’s a theater, and you’re the main act. You’re stripping in public like a cheap, retired Chippendale, praying your socks don’t have holes and holding your belt-less pants while being yelled at by a man the size of a fridge who hasn’t blinked since 2009. Your laptop, phone, headphones, shoes, belt, keys, dignity and the banana you forgot in your carry-on are all scanned like they might explode into cocaine confetti.
Oh boy… You “forgot” your 3.5 oz (that’s like 104ml, so obviously a hazard) deodorant and something looks weird in your bag. You’re cooked; you’re now good to do it all over again: the queuing, the passive-aggressive hand sign signal to step through the gate that will seal the fate of your silly little city trip to Booger Hole, WV, followed by a pat-down from a bloke named Brett, and the honor of reassembling your belongings at lightning speed while Jerome behind you huffs like you personally delayed his flight to Malaga.
How dare you! You, the human equivalent of a fanny pack with one too many cables, a weapon-shaped toothbrush and the audacity to pack toiletries, have become that person who made security “busier than usual.” TSA now knows you by name and swab your electronics like you’re smuggling anthrax in your Nintendo Switch. They made you toss your deodorant and you’re now re-queuing with your clear plastic bag of shame, eyes down and holding your hoodie like it’s contraband. Congratulations, you’re officially air travel’s village idiot and everyone is mocking you.
But it’s over now and once past it, you enter what can only be described as “Purgatory with a Pret.” It’s just perfume counters, overpriced sandwiches and people drinking beers at 5AM.
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Boarding: A Cattle Auction With Less Dignity
You almost made it! Just a few more step, starting with boarding. Boarding a plane is the ultimate test of human organization. You’d think after a century of aviation we would have figured it out, but no. We’re still herding people into a tube like it’s a last-minute sausage sale. First, they call “families with children under five.” Every child in the airport is suddenly four. Then “priority boarding” is announced, and it turns out everyone has priority except you.
You, a poor wretch in Group 94, gets called once all the decent overhead space has been taken by someone’s trumpet and emotional support waffle maker. You stand in line next to a man with a neck pillow already on like he’s narcoleptic and a woman who’s arguing with the gate agent because she had priority boarding but was already standing in line at Starbucks so it would be fair if we could do the boarding again. Boarding won’t start over but she still boards before you, obviously. You finally make your move, shambling forward as the gate agent scans your pass with all the warmth of a vending machine and waves you toward the jet bridge.
The jet bridge is a tunnel of despair. Hot, smelly, no airflow and, filled with people all trying to maintain a personal space that doesn’t exist anymore. You board the plane and the battle truly begins. People block the aisle like they’ve never seen numbers before. A man is trying to jam a horse-sized duffel bag into a tiny overhead bin. Someone else is arguing over the seat number like they’re deciphering ancient runes. You get to your row, only to find someone is already sat in your seat, wearing headphones and pretending not to see you. The aisle is jammed, a baby’s screaming like it just found out about taxes and you realize you’re sweating in places you didn’t know had pores.
Eventually, you wedge yourself into your seat and you stare blankly into the middle distance while another 200 people get in. Welcome aboard, it’s all downhill from here.
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In-Flight Comfort: Where Posture Goes to Die
Speaking of seat… They were “ergonomically designed” 4 eons ago and by now have been scientifically proven to cause scoliosis. Your knees are digging into the tray table even before the person in front of you reclines and once they do recline, your lap is their personal daybed. Your elbows are locked in a cold war with both armrest neighbors, one of which is wearing too much cologne and the other is aggressively asleep with their mouth open like a dying walrus. Your window is smeared with fingerprints, forehead sebum and regret while the air vent overhead is either a hurricane or completely decorative.
Then comes the in-flight meal: a sad beige tray of despair featuring green ratatouille, a rubbery protein puck and a dessert that might have been a brownie in a previous life. Everything is hermetically sealed like it’s been smuggled out of Chernobyl, you start seriously considering starvation but you eat it anyway, partly out of boredom, partly out of masochism and immediately regret it as your stomach sends you an internal cease-and-desist.
You ate it and guess what? Yep, except tough luck: trying to use the lavatory mid-flight requires bravado and at this point of the journey, you style is more lying down in fetal position and calling your mom. You squeeze nonetheless past four tray tables, exasperated looks from the flight attendants, step on a toddler, queue for 20 minutes before realizing that the person “queuing” was actually just stretching their legs and you finally get inside what can only be described as an upright coffin lined with moist plastic.
You emerge ten minutes later covered in sweat, victorious but slightly broken, only to find someone’s eaten your tiny packet of pretzels in your absence. Your snoring walrus of a neighbor is now awake and weirdly covered in crumbs, but whatever, you almost made it!
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In-Flight Entertainment: The Illusion of Choice
Thankfully, in the midst of all this, there is the in-flight entertainment system to pass time. You excitedly browse through the movies list: 120 films, all terrible. One Marvel film from nine years ago, twelve rom-coms starring someone named Jessica, a French film about existential dread and a documentary on Icelandic bird law. The screen’s resolution is somewhere between “potato” and “19th-century oil painting,” the brightness control is just there for decoration and if you’re lucky, your headphones will work in both ears.
And don’t even think about using the Wi-Fi. Oh sure, it exists, but kinda like your hopes and dreams, it’s going nowhere, costs the GDP of a small country and runs slower than the sad sack of unfitness that you are. Interactive map? Oh yes, that relic shows you where you are over the Atlantic, in case you ever wanted to stare at an endless patch of blue while being reminded that you’re nowhere near anything useful. Altitude? 35,000 feet. ETA? Never. Location? Middle of f*** all.
You scroll through the music selection hoping to find solace. It’s 90% elevator jazz, 5% summer hits from 2012, and one playlist titled “Meditation for Business Travelers” which is basically a waterfall sound over some discount pan flute. Eventually, you give up. You close your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else, anywhere else, while the toddler behind you kicks your seat like they’re training for a cage fight. Sleep? That’s a myth, you naive toast. The only thing entertaining about this is the mental breakdown you’re trying to delay until landing…
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Landing: Back to Reality
Finally, after surviving hours of airborne purgatory, your plane begins its “final descent”, which sounds suspiciously like a threat. The cabin lights flicker back on like you’re being interrogated and the flight attendants reappear and start collecting your trash with the haunted eyes of people who’ve seen too much and given up long ago. You hear the captain mumble something over the intercom that sounds like a drunk reading Shakespeare underwater but you hear it, the beacon of hope: “…landing shortly…weather is crap…thanks for flying with us…”
As you descend, your ears pop like bubble wrap and the kid behind you starts screaming like they’ve seen God but God didn’t like it. The plane hits the tarmac like it’s trying to punch through to Australia, the wheels screech, the fuselage trembles and suddenly everyone’s clapping like they just witnessed a miracle, proof that trauma bonding is real. It’s almost over: The plane now drags itself towards the gate like it’s being towed by a depressed donkey.
Then begins a ritual that will leave future anthropologists baffled: Every single person leaps out of their seat, head tilted at 90 degrees, arched backs, hoping that maybe the door will open for them first, despite being in row 47. You know it’s stupid but you stand like that for 20 minutes because you don’t like being left out and stare blankly ahead while someone’s rucksack hits you in the teeth.
You finally exited the plane as fast as you could just to wait a bit longer for your luggage. The carousel begins. Slowly. Menacingly, even. The first suitcase out looks like some kind of kayak or something clearly not yours. You wait, and wait, and wait, but your bag doesn’t arrive. The airline says they’re “tracing it” like it’s CSI and you receive it four days later, with a weird fishy smell. The jet lag slowly hits, your stomach thinks it’s breakfast, your eyelids think it’s 2am and your brain thinks it’s Tuesday. You stumble through a new time zone like patient 0 in a zombie apocalypse but soon, everything will be forgotten. This is the beginning of the rest of your life.
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Verdict
Planes are society’s most passive-aggressive invention since “I’m fine, do whatever you want.” They promise freedom and deliver 12 hours of leg cramps, overpriced drinks and an overall butt-numbing experience. And yet, we keep coming back, because somewhere on the other side of misery, there’s adventure. Or a wedding. Or a conference in Swindon. And so, with busted knees and a broken soul, we fly again, full of hope that “it’ll be fine, it’s just 14 hours!”
Final rating: 2/10, would do it again!
