I'm stopped for a couple of hours in Frankfurt on the way to WSIS. Its been
instructive.
30 minutes before heading for the airport, a call from Thai to say their
plane was late and suddenly I'm going via, well anywhere, Paris, Stockholm,
London, anywhere except Frankfurt. Do I want to delay or go to the airport
at the scheduled time anyway? Helen was a good sport about it, so I decided
to risk the on time start.
As it turned out she had done a great job, not only did she get me a seat
on British Airways 15 minutes before my original flight time, she had me
upgraded to Club class yet. Now this boy travels cattle class all the time
and has no complaints, so why did I find the upgrade unsettling?
Partly it was the bizarre retro style of the seats, something out of 1950's
transatlantic grinds that looked more like a hi tech bathchair than an
actual seat. It also reclines all the way into a bed, make that horizontal
seat, which frankly isn't a lot more comfortable than sleeping more or less
upright.
I made the connection at Bangkok for Frankfurt as planned and it was
business class over night. More than comfortable enough for me, but again,
what possible benefit do I get from having an individual tablecloth on a
plane? Or being served dishes individually instead of in the usual plastic
tray.
I don't blame the airline for doing this stuff, although the marketing
people must be a little odd to say the least, especially the BA folks and
their retro seats. I blame the passengers. When I buy a seat on a plane I
buy a chunk of space from A to B. The more I pay, the more space I get,
which, commercially, is fine. Although there is an upper limit to how much
space anyone can reasonably use on an 11 hour flight. So I have to conclude
that all the rest of the fruitless, expensive, wasteful elaboration of
perfectly ordinary activities such as eating, is designed to salve the egos
of the high paying passengers, whose egos are plainly insufficiently served
by having all that money.
Weirdest of all, the Gold Card lounge at frankfurt is great, it has free
showers and after 20 hours on the way I needed it. It would have been
perfect, apart from the automated toilet seat cleaner. When you flush, the
cistern dismantles itself, a squeegee thing extends over the seat, some
fluid is sprayed on and the plastic seat rotates 15 degrees under the
squeegee. Then a little fibre brush wipes the tiny bit of seat that has
been cleaned, and the seat rotates all the way round, back to its original
position. I dread to think what that costs, but to clean about 4 inches of
toilet seat, it is too much, and far to weird for this country boy.
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