Oh, to soar like the eagles as the Wright brothers intended. Although eagles don’t contend with the indignities of air travel like we do; long lines, a ‘pat down’ while going through security, cramped conditions, and restricted lavatory usage. This is air travel in the post 9/11 world, but it’s almost the same as the air travel I remember from before that particular date.

Security was a hassle then, but now I get selected for ‘random’ screening. I question its randomness when it happens every time. What is it about my profile that gets me flagged by Capps II or whatever big brother system the airlines are using these days? Do the screeners read my work?

Of course this is business travel which makes me the lowest traveler in the airport pecking order. My company picks the airline on the basis of fares and discounts, so service doesn’t factor in. If it would shave some money off the ticket, they would probably allow me to be strapped to the wing or stuffed into the overhead compartment. Not that there’s much of a difference in comfort levels between those options and the seats we are given.

Now when you’re seated by the doorway over the wing they ask for verbal confirmation that in the case of emergency you WILL fulfill your duties as door-opener. Somewhere, sometime the assumption must not have been enough. Someone made a conscious decision to not open the door and confusion and chaos ruled an egress. Now, the executives say, we’ll put the responsibility in the passenger’s hands. Let’s make them agree in front of witnesses that in the event of a belly flop or water landing they will maintain their composure and open the door by following the instructions on their inflight safety card. That’s a lot to put on one person’s shoulders. Shouldn’t there be a committee which will establish a door-opening delegate in the case of emergency? I don’t trust that weasel-looking guy by the door. He might choke in a crisis, or decide out of spite to go out a different exit without informing us, leaving us all to die in a burning airplane while we stand stupidly by a closed doorway, waiting for him to return.

I jest, but even the safety briefing is laughable. Follow the safety lights which will activate in an emergency and lead you to an exit. The oxygen masks will deploy and grace you with life-saving gases, even though the bag won’t inflate. Your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. All of this is based on the assumption that this monstrosity of aluminum and steel will maintain some sort of hull integrity when it impacts at over five hundred miles per hour into the side of a mountain. Hey, our door guy is getting up to go to the bathroom. What if there’s an emergency? Shouldn’t we establish a backup procedure here?

Fellow travelers are interesting. Soldiers, businessmen, retirees, and single mothers hauling packs of children … all sharing the single hope that the pilot knows his business, and that nobody else on the plane is infected with SARS. At one point you could share a conversation with people from many walks of life. Now we all stare each other down, worrying who might be carrying a knife or a shoe bomb and struggling silently for possession of the armrest.

I’m getting worried about our door guy. He’s been gone a long time. Think he’s decided to sit somewhere else? Maybe he’s abandoned his post or cracked under the pressure. The inflight movie is Russell Crow in “Master and Commander”. Honor and duty and cannonballs blasting through the sides of wooden frigates make for interesting cinema, but I can’t help wondering if the pilot sees himself as Russell Crow’s character. Does he dream of commanding a crew of loyal seadogs while risking life and limb for Mother England? If so, he’d better do something about our door guy. I think a flogging is in order.