Forget about Air France, Air Supply or even Air Jordan. Let’s talk about Air Office.
That’s what you get when you buy Internet time on an airplane, a practice which up until recently was greeted with serious disdain — not to mention wastage of dollars — in this household.
Not now.
There are some parameters you have to meet in order to qualify for admission to the Common Sense Department. You have to:
• have $20, or about that
• need Internet access because it will save you time on the ground
• be on a flight of more than a couple of hours
• have an understanding wife, especially if she has $20
• be unlikely to sleep on a plane
This was an American Airlines flight from Barcelona to Miami, on the way back from cruising on the Costa Diadema. There was work to be done. Cruise writing called. So did posting blogs. We are — all of us — so dependent on the Internet to do our jobs that there’s a certain deprivation that accompanies not being connected.
The fee was $19 for the entire flight, which was 10 hours long. And the speed was faster than most cruise ships in our travels.
It was the first time I’d spent an entire shift (eight hours) actually working and communicating with an assortment of sources on the ground, from 39,000 feet…for 4,841 miles…at 536 miles an hour…with the temperature on the other side of the window at 85 degrees…that’s 85 degrees below (F).
No sleep. No movies. No music videos. No idle chatter. There would be plenty of time for all of that after landing.
And there was, thanks to my $19 Air Office.
Today at portsandbows.com: The state of the cruise industry
Ruby Princess
3 nights
April 26, 2015
Los Angeles, Vancouver
Inside: $119
Cost per day: $40
www.princess.com