Last week I went back home for several days to see my brother for the first time in a year and a half.
For that amount of time, he has been living in the Ukraine.
He hasn’t been back home to visit, and I haven’t been able to afford a plane ticket to go see him. He really doesn’t make it a priority to come back and see anybody, because he hates the air travel in between the two locations. He says that the plane ride is so miserable that he would rather just stay there all the time. I decided to ask him why the plane was so uncomfortable and he was more than happy to tell me all about it. Not only is there the overwhelming sense of being trapped for 12 hours, but also all of the inconsiderate human sitting around you. He then went on to talk about how awful the on-board heating and cooling systems are for economy passengers. He said the plane is extremely stagnant feeling and the air smells very stale from the moment you step on board. Once you start flying, the airflow doesn’t improve. Every passenger is provided a single AC vent that they can generally aim towards their face. There’s no option for added heating power if you were cold or your neighbors AC outlet was blowing on you. You can only add more cold air to your environment, without added freshness or heat. He said this made the trip especially miserable. At this point, I stopped him. There’s nothing I hate more than being cold and sitting in a draft. If it was me, I would not want to shiver for a 12 hour plane ride either.