FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Yorkshire Airlines
I've seen some pretty funny email forwards recently but one that is getting its fair share of internet time at the moment is a classic Hale & Pace video clip called "Yorkshire Airlines". Some of the guys I was with in Amsterdam last weekend were talking about this one because, as we boarded the Jet2 flight at Leeds / Bradford International Airport last Thursday morning, we couldn't help but be reminded of it.
Some of the really basic things you come to expect when taking a flight just don't seem to have been thought about that much at LBA: for a start, there was no covered walkway to the plane which would have been very much appreciated on a cold, wet and windy December morning in the bleak, dark hills of West Yorkshire. Then, as I sat down in my seat, by the window I couldn't bring myself to take off my coat because there was a cold breeze running through the whole cabin. I can honestly say that I've never been so cold on an aircraft, even walking onto an air-conditioned jet out of the sweltering heat of Sri Lanka's local climate I felt relatively toasty.
Having said all that, I still marvel at how things have moved on in the aviation industry. Really cheap flights are easy to come by and it was great to get to LBA (just a ten minute drive from my house) early enough so that we were able to hold off breakfast until we landed in Holland. Even traveling to Europe's Northern coast seems amazingly quick and easy; the whole experience reminds me of how small our planet is getting, not least because being on a Jet2 flight really is similar to taking a large bus somewhere. It doesn't seem that long ago when the idea of being in a foreign country - even a relatively close one like France or Germany - was a really special experience that would come infrequently and at great cost to the traveler.
There is the negative side of all this flying and I think the scientists who study the effects on our environment are probably just scratching the surface of the long-term problems that we'll face as a result of the increasing levels of pollution that these kinds of activities produce. But, I'm not sure that people will be happy to give up these privileges now that they're so common: I don't think anyone wants to go back to the bad old days when only the wealthy could afford to travel, either by plane or by car. Perhaps the solutions for the future will lie in the way we deal with our environmental problems rather than ongoing attempts to tax the common man out of taking advantage of the wonders of modern travel capabilities. I can't help being cynical about our government's recent attempts to package new public taxes in green wrapping paper; there must be other ways to help ourselves without giving up our new-found freedom in the sky.
Some of the really basic things you come to expect when taking a flight just don't seem to have been thought about that much at LBA: for a start, there was no covered walkway to the plane which would have been very much appreciated on a cold, wet and windy December morning in the bleak, dark hills of West Yorkshire. Then, as I sat down in my seat, by the window I couldn't bring myself to take off my coat because there was a cold breeze running through the whole cabin. I can honestly say that I've never been so cold on an aircraft, even walking onto an air-conditioned jet out of the sweltering heat of Sri Lanka's local climate I felt relatively toasty.
Having said all that, I still marvel at how things have moved on in the aviation industry. Really cheap flights are easy to come by and it was great to get to LBA (just a ten minute drive from my house) early enough so that we were able to hold off breakfast until we landed in Holland. Even traveling to Europe's Northern coast seems amazingly quick and easy; the whole experience reminds me of how small our planet is getting, not least because being on a Jet2 flight really is similar to taking a large bus somewhere. It doesn't seem that long ago when the idea of being in a foreign country - even a relatively close one like France or Germany - was a really special experience that would come infrequently and at great cost to the traveler.
There is the negative side of all this flying and I think the scientists who study the effects on our environment are probably just scratching the surface of the long-term problems that we'll face as a result of the increasing levels of pollution that these kinds of activities produce. But, I'm not sure that people will be happy to give up these privileges now that they're so common: I don't think anyone wants to go back to the bad old days when only the wealthy could afford to travel, either by plane or by car. Perhaps the solutions for the future will lie in the way we deal with our environmental problems rather than ongoing attempts to tax the common man out of taking advantage of the wonders of modern travel capabilities. I can't help being cynical about our government's recent attempts to package new public taxes in green wrapping paper; there must be other ways to help ourselves without giving up our new-found freedom in the sky.
