I just did something I hadn't done for over two years: reserve and purchase a future plane flight. There's travel on my schedule this summer, and as a 2-3 day drive through country that elects the likes of Paul Gosar is even less appetizing than a plane flight, the flight it is.
For B., who is coming with me, it'll have been even longer. Not flying is one of her goals in life, and in 2019 she achieved that status for the year. Mythcon that year was in San Diego, an easy day-and-a-half drive from here, so she hasn't been on a plane since 2018, when Mythcon was in Atlanta, and wasn't getting there fun.
But age, and the particular effects of living through isolation, have had their further effects, and I've instituted a number of new regulations involving our flying policies:
1. Not to change planes during a journey any more if it can possibly be avoided, that is the law.
I found a Southwest flight that makes a stop but does not change planes. That requires flying out of SFO rather than San Jose, but in some respects SFO is actually easier to deal with.
2. Not to think we can walk all the way to the gate with our carry-on luggage any more, that is the law.
Nowadays you can reserve wheelchairs while making your reservation. Being in a wheelchair also makes it a lot easier to get through TSA check. (Should we sign up for PreCheck? I don't think so. That's for frequent flyers and our whole shtick is not to be frequent flyers; also, the sign-up process, which includes going in for an interview, looks as arduous as the actual screening.)
3. Not to stuff ourselves into 2 seats of a 3-seat economy row any more, that is the law.
Southwest has a program where you can buy 2 seats for one person and get a refund afterwards, so we're trying that. On other airline flights with 3-seat economy rows, we're going business or first class. It's not that much more expensive for a short domestic flight, and the main catch is that, being few in number, they sell out faster than the rest of the plane does.
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