SnapShot with Stefanie GorderSnapShot is a monthly column offering a collection of travel & networking concepts to destinations and activities worldwide.
Expose yourself to travel!
Remember the movie, “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”? I loved the twist of transportation and humor and given that I’m in the travel business, it makes it even funnier to me. The characters are naïve, but still bring us a sense of how crazy it is for those of us who travel more than the average person. It never ceases to amaze me that some of my family and friends think my life is so “glamorous”. I admit having adventures all around the world is very fulfilling, but I get stuck at the concept they find something interesting about being on airplanes. There is no way to get “from here to there” for a fantastic and exciting destination unless planes are involved.
Are you like me? It doesn’t matter if you’re in first class, coach or cargo. When you board the plane, you look around and hope you don’t have that one annoying person (too talkative, drinks too much, a little fidgety child or heaven forbid, a pet carrier!) sitting next to you? You gracefully dance down the aisle balancing your reading materials & coffee and have a way too heavy laptop bag slung over your shoulder. Hoping to avoid knocking the face of someone already seated, you plop down heavily into your aisle seat and say a silent prayer you have made it. The storage of your over packed carry-ons can come when you catch your breath. Which never really happens because then we all fight for the same overhead space. As you stand to place your laptop bag ahead, you cautiously glance at your seatmates … thankfully this time they don’t look like ax murderers!
Do the airlines honestly believe they are helping us by charging for checking bags? This in turn causes some to use the oversized carry-on luggage that keeps getting larger and larger and larger!!! Let me be honest … not me! I still use that super heavy over the shoulder laptop bag which does fit in the overhead and then I use the floor space for my super tiny purse that is stuffed inside a larger carry-on. I learned years ago, I must check baggage (it’s the four pairs of shoes that make me bring a full sized suitcase, although one time I took seven to a weeklong convention and was forced to take two bags). Every year I have to buy new luggage because mine has been torn or shredded. I send a silent curse out to the baggage handlers who don’t provide the same loving care I do to my bag. Then again, perhaps they would say it’s my heavy packing style? Seriously, I only need to pack two pairs of shoes, right? If someone has a lead on a great piece of light luggage that will last for years, I’d like to know about it!
Last month I was on a direct flight from Atlanta to Anchorage. Long flights should mandate an exercise program. “Everyone up now … walk in a clockwise motion around the aircraft while doing arm lifts. Hop! One. Two. Three. Four. Now wave to the people still seated who think we have lost our marbles.” My seat mates were from Florida and headed to Alaska for a family reunion aboard a cruise ship. It was their lucky day since I was not in the mood to chat (yes, at times we all have the ability to turn into people we don’t recognize aboard airplanes). I was busy making a list of the things I needed to do when I returned to Anchorage and announced my life was changing. Then I heard “are you visiting Anchorage or do you live there?”
It’s that moment you turn with a snarl on your face and anger in your eyes at having been interrupted, then immediately regret it as you look into the eyes of a warm and inviting elderly couple that gets to you. Nice people. No more lists. No more concentration on a project that needed to get done. I had seven hours ahead of me that I thought would be my own. And then immediately I switched gears. I had seven hours to show off my brilliant knowledge of Alaska and the tourism industry by giving these visitors the best Alaska they would ever see or hear about!
Sometimes, networking on the airplanes means money! My friend Meg is an independent contractor with an amazing portfolio of skills like training, running travel trade & consumer awareness programs, and even assisting on movie sets. She was once on a cross country flight having just finished a consumer trade show gig and needing a well deserved break. Her seatmate was headed home to DC. Turns out he was a managing partner for an environmental company and they began to chat. Meg has worked up on the North Slope (where’s is cold and dark during Alaska’s winter months) and her seatmate was seriously interested in her experience. Within one week, she began working for him and instructing classes on OSHA compliance. Now that’s a great airplane ride!
My friend Dawn was in recovery from a gall bladder issue and the last thing on her mind was traipsing across the country with her family in tow for a reunion. Air travel is more worrisome for mothers, especially when extremely full flights are involved. On one segment, the family of five was unable to obtain seats together. They had one row of 3, a window seat across in the same aisle and a seat directly behind the row of 3. The middle child wanted a window seat and their three year old was in her car seat so that meant the 7 year old had to sit across from Mom with
Scott McMurren owns Alaska Travelgram and he’s always on airplanes. One time he was downgraded from an “F” seat to a middle seat between Seattle and Boston. Now, that’s another LONG flight! He ended up between a radiologist and some sort of holistic witch-doctor (his words). Scott is one of those individuals who say it like it is … and when he tells me it was a FABULOUS flight, he must have been highly entertained. There have been two hook ups since the original meeting at Pike Street Market in Seattle. He wasn’t really clear if these seatmates became business partners or friends so I just dropped the subject. The lesson in airline companions is to hope they are interesting enough to keep you entertained during a cross country plane trip.
Flights can be boring. People can be rude, hurried, sad, happy, irritating and an assortment of other emotions. It might be better sitting in the dentist chair. Or, it might be the time of your life. My friend Russ Rosenberry sent me this link showing a Southwest Airlines flight attendant who rapped out his entire safety message. Link through to You Tube and watch the expressions on passenger faces: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjybzdXVmI
May all your future flights have a bit of fun included and keep your fingers crossed that I’m not your seatmate. Happy Trails!
Submission: October 2009
Stefanie Gorder, ctp, ds
marketingCents, llc.
Email: Stefanie@marketing-Cents.com
Twitter: @StefanieGorder
SnapShot is a monthly column offering a collection of travel & networking concepts to destinations and activities worldwide. Expose yourself to travel!
For more information, please visit Stefanie's TNNW Bio.
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1 comment:
Stefanie,
Thanks for sharing this. I dislike airlines because of how they run their business and how they mistreat their customers. However life would be far worse without them. And attitude has a lot to do with what you end up experiencing during your flights. Great reminder to keep mine up.
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