Flight Class
When you work in a regional sales job, travel becomes second nature along with late night Webex sessions which are as interesting as root canals and making presentations which no one remembers. Add travel to that list as well. By travel, I mean of course Air travel. When you have accumulated enough miles on the clock, like Jack Neo in The Matrix, you start seeing fellow travellers for who they are. Their avatars. You see every traveller from the 1-year-old crying baby who will cry only on overnight flights to the window seating passenger who will get up so often that his quadriceps show a noticeable improvement. Airports are the great levellers of humanity. Under one roof, they herd billionaires, babus, backpackers, brides, and bored teenagers through metal detectors, pat-downs, and security bins overflowing with, half-empty water bottles, body spray cans and confused expressions.
But once on board, the real theatre begins. The fascinating zoological parade of traveller types. After years of domestic and international flights, I present, for your handy reference (and perhaps painful recognition), the typical traveller personas, you are destined to meet when you take to the skies.
- The Productivity Olympian
These guys are known to furiously keep typing away at their keyboards on the laptops or having Bluetooth teleconferences till the very last minute, which is 10 minutes after they are requested to switch off their mobile phones. Even during the flights, they will be dolling up reports, powdering presentations and enhancing Excels like Duracell bunnies. At times, they will even (shudder) skip the drinks and the meal. They honestly believe that the universe might just about stop functioning if their email does not move to the “sent” folder before the flight takes off. Now with some airlines offering in flight Wi FI, they are like 7-year-olds at the ice cream parlour.
But their real art form is passive-aggressively leaning into the aisle just enough to get rammed by every passing trolley, elbowed by crew, and glared at by latecomers. When they return home, they display bruises like war medals.
- B) The Recliner
No discussion of air passengers is complete without this ergonomic enthusiast. The moment the seatbelt sign goes off, they will recline their seat to the max position so that a reasonably talented passenger in the row behind can do dental work on them.
Their defence is the seat allows it, the airline allows it and I have paid for it hence I will do it. They are immune to polite coughs, knee jabs, or glares. To their credit, they will usually spring upright only during meals not out of consideration, but to protect their own clothes from incoming paneer curry.
PS: These are also the guys who will casually order a whiskey at 6 AM in the lounge because they are entitled to it
- C) The Great Rambler
These are the guys who will keep speaking nonstop in their mobiles having meaningless chatter with their friends till the stewardess warns them the third time.
“So I told Ketan , are you crazy man?”
“Sir, PLEASE SWITCH OFF your phone …we are already at the head of the runway”
“Hey Jeet, this airline is anal man….I gotta hang up. Call you when I land”
They are also the ones who will switch on their phones as soon as the flight touches down to send a text “Just landed” to their wives (or to Jeet). Neil Armstrong had taken longer to announce his landing.
These will always be men. Not women, not boys, not senior citizens but hurly burly hairy, sweaty men.
- D) The Guilty Free Shopper
These are the apex predators of the airport jungle. You spot them at the terminal, armed with three giant DFS bags bulging with perfumes, whiskies and the mandatory giant Gold Toblerone, and occasionally, a single 25 ml bottle of overpriced Japanese eye serum which promises to turn their Mandira Kher in to Miranda Kerr.
They will angle their purchases just-so in the overhead bin, ensuring your laptop bag is squished into a corner. They don’t need all that stuff but the thrill of the duty-free hunt, combined with the magical phrase “no customs duty,” transforms them into the shopping versions of Alexander, the great. If you ever want them to go buy eggs, bread and milk, ask your grocer to open a duty-free section.
- E) The Monks (and the “Monkees”)
The monk parent is Gandhi with a diaper bag. They smile apologetically while their toddler gleefully kicks the seat, howls at decibels hitherto thought only theoretically possible, and sprinkles you with apple juice and smashed pumpkin puree. You watch in disbelief as the parent calmly murmurs, “Beta, don’t do that, okay?” while junior is acting like a 2-year-old Che Guevara in row 32.
Alternatively, you may encounter the older version of Che Guevara: a 6-year-old prodigy in seat-back entertainment, capable of 14 consecutive Dora episodes the glare of which keeps you awake overnight, regular tray-table slams, and one full-volume declaration of “I NEED TO PEE!” during final descent.
- F) The Pharaohs
This passenger carries a diamond-studded passport cover, Gucci shades, and two personal assistants (or so you assume, since the cabin crew treats them with the reverence usually reserved for royalty). They look like they stepped off some magazine cover and seem to be having their own supply of oxygen.
They sail past queues, lounge luxuriously at boarding, and upon arrival, are met by an airport staffer holding a little sign and a golf cart. Nobody knows who they are. We only know they are not us. Usually separated by the curtains so that no third world eyes from economy or business can see them during flights, one can’t be sure about their flying experience.
- G) The Indiana Jones
Identifiable by the enormous backpack (sometimes larger than themselves), and sometimes spotted as couples, they survive 18-hour flights on a budget of ₹99, have read 12 Lonely Planet guides, and order “only water, thank you.” Often dressed in psychedelic cotton pantaloons, and hosting some impressive, matted hair which could serve as asylum for insects, they bear the calm demeanour of Socrates before his hemlock. Nothing fazes them e.g. Flight delays, non-working screens, ice cream being over before the cart reaches them etc. They have a yogic forbearance to have a beatific calmness about them.
They will regale you with tales of “that time swimming in the Baikal” or “this amazing retreat in Machu Picchu,” while you nod knowledgably with the expression of a14 year old who stumbled upon his first porn magazine.
After three decades of being flung across time zones like a soggy samosa, I’ve concluded that modern air travel is less about flying and more like serving a sentence. As per a study, the best friends people make are in prison. So, use your air travel to make friends and discover humanity. Like a loyal masochist, I keep coming back, boarding pass in hand, boarding zone uncalled, boarding sanity long since lost trying to discover that adventure called life and so should you.
Have you any other profiles to add? Kindly feel free to do so in the comments
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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