Tag: passengers

In my opinion, the introduction of the in-seat TV screen is the greatest thing to happen to flying since escape hatches.

Finally, we are in control of what we want to watch.

However, the sight of a hundred or so people tightly packed next to each other wearing headphones and intenty staring at their own personal screen definitely diminishes any sense of flying as a shared experience.

Flying used to be an adventure. Now it’s an inconvenience. Security measures in our post-9/11 world have a lot to do with that, but a general malaise towards the engineering marvel that is scheduled mass passenger flight already exsisted before our ‘war-on-terror’ reality.

Heaven help us if the entertainment system were to go down. We may have to read, or introduce ourselves to our elbow neighbour, or stare out the window at a sight that human eyes had never seen a scant century ago.