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Published: February 17th 2017
" The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands" - Sir Richard Burton.
Any journey anywhere has a starting point and a mode of getting there. For far away lands this invariably involves flying. So.. with a curious mind I "Googled" a bit to try and understand just what this flying thing is all about. Consider this: every single day of the year in 2014 there were 102,465 flights around the globe transporting 3 billion passengers in that year alone. Believe it or not a bunch of people in an organisation by name of "Air Transaction Aviation Group" did the sums and continue to do so. Staggering numbers indeed! So when the Elliott's get boarding passes for Cathay Pacific flight CX 748 to Hong Kong, it is a piddly drop in a very large pond. A fraction of a very large statistical number. Just to finish off this statistical stuff I then "Googled" to establish the odds of being involved in a fatal accident whilst flying. Good news...in terms of the top 39 airlines with the best accident record, chances are 1 in 10 million. (The bottom airlines 1 in 1.5 million so choose carefully). With these reassuring numbers floating in one's mind, fastening the seat belt is a doddle but then for all us of there are some real idiosyncracies on any just about any flight we undertake. Ours were interesting to say the least.
First up there is the lingering question as to who or what form the passenger alongside one will take. In our case Sue had a Chinese guy alongside her who looked cool until he found it necessary to purge his throat often of a serious blockage. Rasping and loud bouts of coughing and snorting were followed by unseen projectiles flying into the vomit packet in front of him. With 12 hours of this ahead of us one just bites the bullet. What else can one do? Change seats? No chance. Flight full! Interesting when the Flight Commander did his cheery "Welcome Aboard" greeeting to discover that both he and the Second in Command are ex Saffers. Got me thinking that we really do a great job exporting so much talent and expertise all over the World. I guess it's a number which will never be calculated but it's worth asking the question...how many professional and highly qualified people have left the shores of South Africa in recent times and what is the impact of this brain and wealth drain on the country? We live in a Global village and one could argue that this applies to most developed countries but I suspect that our overall loss is greater than most.
On a long haul flight there are only two things that are uppermost in one's mind. Food and entertainment. For the love of me I have never understood how people devote so much attention to the myth that they are going to get a gourmet meal on any flight. Especially when one is in Economy Class where 90%!o(MISSING)f the bums press seats. Cathay Pacific follow the mantra of handing out a menu which sort of grabs one's attention but that's about where it ends. Very average food,which I anticipated, and I would surmise that the top Execs at this airline took a conscious decision that they would not use food as the magnet to entice passengers. Other marketing bombs to seduce customers more important. Trays cleared it's then a case of scrolling through a huge array of music or movie options. I found Fleetwood Mac's best hits which triggered a nostalgic journey back in time to Natal University days in the early 1970's (scary thought!) followed by the best of the Bee Gee's although two of their songs didn't exactly have flying friendly tiltles ..."Tragedy" and "Staying Alive".
With a bit of wine in the system to numb the brain and having read, watched and listened to stuff to pass time, the brain sort of shuts down slowly almost in tandem with lights being dimmed and aided by the soothing sounds of jet engines outside. This triggers another flying myth. Sleep! Even aided by all manner of sleeping pills the comatose state one enters on an aircraft does not qualify as sleep in the true sense of the word. Don't ever believe anyone who said they slept well on their flight. Simply ask them how they felt on landing. Buggered! Discussion over.
Interminable hours later and after adjusing one's watch to new local time, the prospect of reaching a destination looms. In this case Hong Kong which was only kind of "half way" to Sydney. At this point I recalled a comment made by Sue about an hour into our flight...."wouldn't it have been quicker if we had flown direct to Sydney?" I had justifed this longer routing via Hong Kong on the basis of saving a buck or two and that we had plenty of time on our hands and didn't need to rush anywhere. Next time I suspect saving a buck will be far less important than getting there in the quickest time.
A good 24 hours after leaving Johannesburg we finally touched down in Sydney where we will spend a week with family before the real adventure to the land of the long white cloud.
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Sally Tucker
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Update
Good Day Tim - thanks for the start of your blog and look forward to more! Hate to be the one to remind you that you are no longer 56 years old - you need to update your profile :)