United We Fly

Early Morning at 35,000 feet

The flight from Syracuse to Chicago boarded well before sunrise.  While there were a handful of morning people who fully embraced the early hour as I do, the balance slogged along, anxious to catch a nap once we got airborne.   After the boarding ritual was completed, safety briefings given, and taxi/takeoff behind us, the plane became quiet as we ascended into the darkness of the morning sky with only the steady hum of the jet engines audible to the few passengers still awake. 

Morning flights have their own character.  It is dark in the cabin, with seatbelt signs and random cell phones glowing like night lights up and down the aisle. This morning the sun seems to be straining to rise, shedding just barely enough light to expose the thick, charcoal-gray cloud layer below us.  The deep rich color of the blanket reminds me of my favorite suit but the cloud deck also looks dense and cold. The flight crew is quiet and the cabin is calm and still.  I open my tablet and immerse myself in the latest Clancy novel, occasionally checking my watch and reminding myself that our destination is in a different time zone.

A slight change in the engine noise is the first indication that we'll soon be descending into the murky, cold, cloud layer.   I'm familiar with the routine.  This is the time for me to stow my tablet and take advantage of the opportunity for some quiet reflection. It is surreal when I consider that traveling at more than 300mph, 35,000 feet above the earth provides an opportunity for quiet reflection.

For all the stress, discomfort, and anxiety travel evokes in me, the one thing I almost always appreciate is the quiet darkness of an early morning flight.  There are no conversations, not even whispers that can be heard over the buzz of the engines. Most people seem to be taking advantage of this chance to rest for an hour or so before entering the pandemonium of a major hub airport on a Monday morning. 

It's getting a little chilly in the cabin, but reasonable I suppose when I consider what the frigid temperature must be outside the airplane. The plane is not full and several of us have the rare luxury of a two-seat row to ourselves.  In those cases, the sleeping passengers are huddled across both seats and covered with a jacket or sweater.

The claustrophobic nature of the modern commercial airplane is hidden by the darkness, and being out of sight doesn't contribute to my anxiety.  The armrest height, however, is just wrong enough to cause stress in my shoulders, neck, and back. I roll my shoulders back and forth and extend my neck left and right, feeling the pleasant stretch. I work at stretching until I feel the familiar crack and get a moment of relief before my anatomy retakes its more natural form and the muscle ache returns.

The captain breaks the silence, making the first announcement, almost in a whisper, informing those awake that our anticipated arrival is 20 minutes or so.  This coincides with the ding for seatbelts, and some bumps and jostling as the plane encounters the initial wisps of moisture at the top of the cloud layer.  All hints of the sunrise disappear as we begin to descend into the overcast winter sky above Chicago.  The sun will stay above thick clouds and our destination is below.

My ears, natural altimeters, begin to ache.  I know this means we are changing altitude.  The flight attendant's announcement that we are on final approach to O'Hare confirms my physical prognostication of the event.  I know that the pressure will build until a few minutes after we land. At some point (usually during the taxi to the gate) the pressure suddenly equalizes, and feels almost as if my ears sigh with relief in thankfulness of being back on the ground. For now, I manage the situation with short swallows and yawns, releasing just enough pressure to keep the discomfort tolerable. 

The airplane slowly tilts to the left, then a little right, and again back left.  Now it settles back into a level decent.  This sequence repeats a couple of times and I imagine the pilots simultaneously lining up with the runway and reducing latitude.  The control surfaces deploy with the sound of a power drill and I hear the unmistakable, reassuring whooshing sound of landing gear entering into the slipstream.  When I hear the small metallic thump as they lock into place I release the breath I wasn't even aware I was holding.  Landing a plane has got to be a complicated job.  I miss the days when the airline made the conversations between the pilots and the ground control available as a channel on the plane's entertainment systems.  The professional, routine interactions always put me at ease.

After a few minutes the aircraft, weighing tens of thousands of pounds,  moving at over 100 miles per hour meets the solid surface of the runway.  The result is an anticlimatic bump and a little jostling as we reengage with Terra-firma. The physics of that meeting always amazes me because nothing breaks as often as it seems it should. I guess it's due to that independence of vertical and horizontal momentum I vaguely recall from my high school physics class.  The sudden roar of the engines in reverse thrust grabs my attention and I wonder how long a runaway is exactly.  The engines' return to near idle signals success in arresting the horizontal momentum and we begin to move along at a speed that might be typical of a car driving down a neighborhood street.

Taxing to the gate seems to take as long as the flight.  I look at the grey morning out the starboard side window.  It looks so cold.  There are white layers of snow between the gray salt-stained taxiways.  We ride through a sea of construction sites each with its own heavy equipment, some lighted and surrounded by men dressed to spend the day in the cold, while others sit dormant and abandoned.  Large drainage cylinders are scattered everywhere, looking like giant children's playthings scattered around its giant backyard.

Eventually, we make our way to the gate and are marshaled into the parking spot.  The energy in the cabin and anxiety go from 0 to 60 when the final ding of the flight sounds and the seatbelt light goes out, signaling the start of the rat race.  At the sound of the bell, almost all aisle seat passengers pop out of their seats in a choreographed motion, opening overhead bins, and donning heavy winter coats, jostling for position and space in the already crowded aisle.  

The jetbridge operator makes the obligatory two-knock signal, the boarding door is opened and fresh, cool air fills the cabin.  Each row of passengers takes their place in the line to file off the plane and head to the next leg of their journey. 

This is my only flight today.   My business is in Chicago.  I walk up into the terminal building and head toward the blueline train to make my way to the Loop and a rendezvous with the team to begin our meetings.  In a few days, I will repeat this in reverse.