I Hate Flying

I hate flying.

The other day, I got back from a trip to the UK. We celebrated my sister getting married, we did lots of shopping and we spent some time with family, namely my cousins, aunt and uncle. It was nice, but it was expensive and I spent most of the vacation ill with a cold. I didn’t even buy much, most of my money went on food and cold medication. But the bit I hated most was the flying.

From Cyprus to England, it’s five hours there and four and a half hours back. Weirdly, England to Cyprus is quicker because it’s down hill. Thing is though, I’m not scared of flying or anything. There’s that level of unease whenever you hit turbulence, and of course it feels weird on take off and landing, but I never found it scary. No, it’s everything else about flying that I hate.

The drive to the airport is where it all starts. Normally, we fly from Paphos airport, which is about 15 minutes outside Paphos. Larnaca airport is on the other side of the island, a 1.5 hour drive away, but it’s far enough outside Larnaca that it doesn’t have any shops or anything nearby. Luton airport, where we landed and departed from in the UK, is in town, but is surrounded by hotels, mechanics and car rental places, making it a rather hostile place to land.

And, of course, you have to get there early. It’s always been two hours before the flight for my family, and it’s always worked well enough for us, we’ve never missed a flight. But it does mean there’s a lot of waiting around. These days, actually getting through checkin isn’t too bad because you can do it online. Getting through security on the other hand can involve lots of waiting as people have to take their shoes off and shove bags and coats into boxes to be scanned. And heavens forbid the metal detectors go off.

Then there’s more waiting. You wait for your gate to open up, you wait to use the bathroom, you wait at the gate, you wait to get on the plane, you wait while on the plane to take off. To quote Ross Scott, you wait, you wait and you wait!

Waiting in Luton was particularly bad. At least the gates in Larnaca had seats as you waited for the bus to get to the plane. In Luton, you stood in line and then you stood in a fucking stairwell while waiting to go to the plane.

All the while, you are surrounded by expensive things. Once you have checked in, you are basically trapped inside the expensive world of Off Duty. Alcohol, clothes, perfume, gifts, chocolates and restaurants. Even bottled water costs an arm and a leg. I thought water was expensve in Larnaca, costing €2 a bottle, but in Luton, it was £2 a bottle, or about €2.40. In the average kiosk, you’re rarely looking at anything more than €1. Double the fucking price.

Being on the plane itself though, it’s mostly just boring and uncomfortable. Seats are much smaller than they used to be and most budget airlines have basically nothing. Inflight movies are gone, as is the screen with the map and the plane, moving in real time. You gotta find your own entertainment these days, but after an hour of travel to the airport, two hours in the airport and then all the waiting before take off, how much battery are you going to have?

And, frankly, the trip home is worse. What made it super shitty for me was that there was no room in the overhead lockers, so I had to have everything crammed between my legs. Including my coat and jacket. The overhead lockers nearby were all mostly filled with my brother’s girlfriend’s FOUR carry-on bags, one of which I had had to lug around the airport. You can’t stand up either, because there are people going up and down, either to the bathroom, or the stewards are serving food and drinks.

Your misery though doesn’t end as you land. You just have to sit there for ages as you are taxied to your gate. The staff always say to keep seatbelts on and stay seated but I don’t blame people for wanting to get up as fast as possible.

Hopefully, you don’t need to wait too long. Unless you have luggage to claim. At least watching luggage go around in circles is pretty amusing. After that, you go through customs, take a much needed piss and, hopefully, you are now free.

It’s not so bad if you have just arrived on your holiday. But the return flight is just depressing as fuck.

I can’t wait until we invent faster long-distance travel technology.