Stuck on a plane for ten hours
During this latest storm in the northeast, passengers were trapped for up to ten hours in planes on the tarmac. JetBlue was really hoping that the weather would clear up enough for that plane to be able to fly, as turning back to the gate loses its place in line to take off, and in all likelihood, would require refunding all of the passengers’ tickets (which ended up happening anyway). But I’m not so interested in the economic aspects of it.
My question is this: in the grand scheme of things, is ten hours inside an airplane on the runway really so bad? Airplane passengers routinely spend much longer than ten hours couped up on airplanes during trans-oceanic flights. Given the choice, and assuming I didn’t have to get anywhere, I’d much rather be couped up in an airplane on the ground rather than in the air. It’s less noisy, there’s fewer vibrations, it’s safer, and if there’s an emergency you have much better chances.
What I’m really seeing parallels with is space travel. I guess most people just aren’t cut out for it, or maybe it takes a bit of training to be able to stand being couped up in small spaces for long times. The space shuttle’s interior space is a bit smaller than a commercial jetliner’s, and the astronauts are stuck in it for two weeks, not just ten hours. The earlier astronauts had it even worse. They couldn’t really even move around in their capsule. They just had to remain seated for the duration of the mission.
So yes, ten hours is inconvenient, but it’s not terrible. I think I last for much longer than that. Especially if I really had to — like, say, in space.
February 19th, 2007 at 01:09
I don’t think the comparison with being cooped up in the air is really accurate. While you’re in the air, at least you’re accomplishing something; you’re making progress towards your destination. On the ground, nothing is being served by sitting in the plane—you’ll still have to spend the original amount of hours in the air. Furthermore, instead of sitting in the plane, you could spend those ten hours in the airport, or at a hotel, or so on.
I would gladly spend far longer to travel in space. But I would still get antsy sitting in a plane on a runway, not moving.