Fly the friendly skies....

Lots of articles in The Chronicle the past few days about the airline companies and their planes. Their very old planes, to be exact. Just how many miles should an airline expect one of their planes to fly? I would think that the stress on an airplane is not exactly like the stress on a car. Those planes are speeding along at 600 miles per hour, aren't they? And just what does all that speed do to the nuts and bolts, not to mention the engines of those planes.

So there I was, reading the articles this morning, and knowing that we plan to make at least one plane trip this coming summer. My husband tends not to worry about those things. I, on the other hand, do worry. I told him about the offending airlines...... I explained about the lack of inspections and the repair work going to non-American companies so the airlines can save money.

Let's see...... would you rather a highly-trained and well-paid technician work on your airplane, or would you give the work to a minimum-wage apprentice in a country whose government may not impose safety regulations on their airlines? And how come all the top-notch million-dollar executives at the airline companies aren't worried about their own planes? Are they not flying in them? Do they all have private jets with personal pilots so they don't have to even think about their safety as they buckle their seat belts?

Don't get me started, I swear. This is why I hate to get on an airplane. I've always hated it, but I've done it many times over the past fifteen years. We've gone as far away as Australia, Hawaii and Amsterdam..... and as close as Las Vegas and Savannah. No matter how many miles it takes, I still hate the thought of getting on those planes. But I do. Can't drive to Hawaii or Australia, after all. And I loved both places, and would have missed great trips had I not gotten on the planes.

My Uncle Mino didn't trust the airlines. He never got on another plane after he got out of the Navy when WW II ended. He didn't trust the pilots ("How do I know if he had a fight with his wife before going to the airport? The pilot could be getting on that plane and be mad as hell."). He didn't trust the people in the control towers ("How do we know if their eyesight is 20/20? And what if they have to sneeze and they shut their eyes for a few seconds and two planes get too close to one another?") He didn't like going to the airports to pick anyone up ("They can't even figure out how to keep the traffic moving on the ground at Kennedy, so what makes you think they can keep those planes moving up in the sky?")

He had an excuse for everything that was connected to airplanes or the airports. When I was just married to my husband and beginning to take lots of airplane flights all over the country, Uncle Mino would listen to my trip plans and look at me with a serious face and say "I don't fly. Period. I just don't fly." I would look right back at him and smile, with my answer: "I don't fly either, Uncle Mino--- that's why I take a plane." While I'd be laughing at my joke, he would still be looking at me seriously and telling me "You have your father's sense of humor... your father's sense of humor."

My Uncle Mino has passed away now...... nearly five or six years ago. He didn't go anywhere that he couldn't drive to..... and kept to his word about not flying. Period. He didn't have a lot of exciting vacation memories, but he didn't care. He was alive when my husband and I went to Australia, and he was thoroughly appalled that someone with "good sense" would take a plane ride over an ocean.

I need to stop thinking about that "over the ocean" part.