If I Could Fly 500 Times…..

[Dangermouse]

(To paraphrase the Proclaimers)

I used to travel pretty heavily for work and started keeping track of my flights, mileage etc. years ago, mainly for work expenses but partially because I like lists. After a while I started adding all my previous flights to the list, just for completeness.

Anyway, over the Christmas holidays I made my 500th flight, noting that I classify a flight as wheels-up to wheels-down. It’s different from a trip, which may involve multiple flights. Perhaps I should clarify also that these are commercial flights and I am not a pilot.

My return flight from the UK was going to be #499, and I was wondering what exotic locale would be the destination for the big milestone – Brazil? San Francisco? Aruba perhaps?


But while at my parents’ home I discovered a long forgotten family holiday in Spain in 1971 which added 2 more flights, making my 500th flight ironically enough my shortest flight. Symbolically too, it was the 170 mile flight out of Belfast, to Manchester on New Years Eve.

I’m sure I have missed a few but the count is probably +/-2%.

I’ve probably been on most sorts of commercial jets, but sadly, I never made a flight on Concorde. And surprisingly I haven’t been on a 747 yet either but now that Delta inherited some from Northwest hopefully I’ll scratch that one off the list.

[OverlandMan]

The 747s are becoming less frequently flown because other wide-body & long range planes are more efficient. You probably already know that being a 500 flyer. At any rate, good luck in that objective.

I used to love to fly, when I was a kid. As an adult now, I don't care for it much but occasionally I do have to fly for work and pleasure. First class sure makes things nicer. It seems like all the glamor and luxury of flying back in the 80s and even into the 90s went away. Now it's more like a Greyhound bus. People smell bad and don't dress up. The planes are configured like sardine cans.

I don't know how many flights I've been on, but it's certainly not 500.

[ALEXAKOS]

Congrats mouse! That sounds like a heavy score there. Might even give you a "Flying mouse" title in honor of such a score.
How do you keep track? Have you used one of those online flight records that give you several stats on your flights?

All I can remember from, those stats is that I have been 2.4 times to the moon and back so far if all the miles flown had been added up.
I use this: http://my.flightmemory.com/
(http://my.flightmemory.com/)
The there is also that: http://flightdiary.net/

[Dangermouse]

Alex,

I have just been using excel, but I now see how the next few weeks will be spent inputing it all into flightmemory.

Thanks for that, I think. :biggrin:

[Jonathan]

Yep, it used to be more fun than it is now. I remember not all that long ago where people cheered when the plane landed. Not anymore. No candies passed around to help you pop your ears either. And minimal food of course that is complimentary. I'd imagine a nice glass of water is going to cost you a dollar or two soon.

The leg room isn't too awesome either if you're tall. But cramming more people in to the same space saves them money. But if you can afford it, you can buy yourself some extra leg room. Or a window seat. Or exit row seat. Or the front of the line. Or the front of the airplane. All the things you can buy as add-ons have made flying as a regular, base fare customer a nightmare. That's wonderful if this is the new business model, but it sucks for many. Another extention of everything is for sale and promoting the need to keep trying to make more money at a job you hate. Or, just don't go on that flight. Or don't go see that baseball game with the expensive tickets. Or.... eeek, sorry about the rant, lol.

Where was I?

Oh ya, 500 is a lot. I got adding it up more or less and it's somewhere between 200 and 300, but not nearly 500. I travelled for GE full time years ago and was in a lot of planes. Took me 45 hours to get home from Africa where I was commissioning some equipment one time. Boy that was a treat. Two different eight hour flights and two separate eight hour waits. Holy crap did I sleep when I got home that night.

I knew my travelling field services days were over when I had the misfortune of "trying" to fly home on September 11th from the Boston airport. That's when the last of the fun got sucked out of it for me. I was there an hour or so after the lunatics left. Took 3 hours to get a rental car back and another 10-12 hours to drive home to Toronto from Boston. No one likes being assumed to be a criminal every time you go through security ever since, but that's what it has amounted to. Oh well, we have a big damn country on this side of the border that I haven't seen all of yet :)

[Spittybug]

I'm nowhere near 500 either, but the flight out of Bahrain the day after Sept. 11 was "unique".

While sitting working in Aramco's HQ in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, a JP Morgan banker (named Osama btw) watched the events via web feed. Not knowing what was to happen next, I decided to bug the hell out and got over to Bahrain. The next night I was on a Gulf Air flight to London and worked out of that office for a couple of weeks. Since I was business class and therefore obviously not a security risk :huh: the airline personnel whisked me past all the additional security checkpoints and right onto the plane. While the rest of the world was immediately going to plastic cutlery, Goof Air as we called them still had nice sharp metal ones.... as if they hadn't a care in the world. The cockpit door was open much of the flight too, no kidding. Then again, they knew they had nothing to fear....

[jackb]

500 sounds like quite a bit, that's pretty cool. I've def flown plenty too, in the hundreds I'd bet, but this makes me curious to sit down and try and remember them all and see how many really...

[thirdmanj]

The 747s are becoming less frequently flown because other wide-body & long range planes are more efficient. You probably already know that being a 500 flyer. At any rate, good luck in that objective.

I used to love to fly, when I was a kid. As an adult now, I don't care for it much but occasionally I do have to fly for work and pleasure. First class sure makes things nicer. It seems like all the glamor and luxury of flying back in the 80s and even into the 90s went away. Now it's more like a Greyhound bus. People smell bad and don't dress up. The planes are configured like sardine cans.

I don't know how many flights I've been on, but it's certainly not 500.

Ain't that the truth. I don't dress to the 9s when I travel, but I do try to straighten up a little. No way your gonna catch me traveling the skyways in a grungy pair of sweats with "juicy" or "pink" tacked on the butt.

[ALEXAKOS]

Ain't that the truth. I don't dress to the 9s when I travel, but I do try to straighten up a little. No way your gonna catch me traveling the skyways in a grungy pair of sweats with "juicy" or "pink" tacked on the butt.
No?
Darn! That would be an excellent way to recognize each other on flights! :thumbup2:
Well, that if you were standing and not siting in your seat that is....

[Dangermouse]

Ain't that the truth. I don't dress to the 9s when I travel, but I do try to straighten up a little..

We used to be able to turn up at the airport dressed nicely and be able to talk our way into an upgrade, but those days are long gone. Now I just dress for comfort. Don’t think it is anything to do with 9/11, just the increased fuel cost and airlines being more prone to overbooking their flights. Also gone are transatlantic flights that are ½ empty so you can lie across a few seats and get a sleep. It is this decrease in personal comfort that would put me off flying rather that security lines, but perhaps it’s what you are used to; I grew up being searched on an almost daily basis, so that’s not an issue, more so that it just adds extra time to a long trip, rather . In the Eighties, the only metal detectors at Heathrow were for the gates that serviced Belfast. I wonder if JZD had a access to a private plane that flew him to Belfast from England? Otherwise I picture him being dropped off in his limo at JFK to board Concorde to Heathrow, being treated like royalty all the way, and then having to line up with all the other Belfast travelers to get his baggage X-rayed and then being frisked by an armed policeman. Must have been quite the culture shock!


About 10% of these flights have been 8+ hour international ones which are, not surprisingly, the nicest when the company pays for business class. On my last one from Brazil I somehow ended up in First Class for the first time (ever possibly), on American, and they gave out pajamas. Freaking pajamas! That you could take home (which I didn’t as I couldn’t think what I would do with them). Business class accommodation has really gone up market in the past 5 or so years, as have the prices, and it’s always a bit of a shame to fly that way on a night flight as I really want to get my money’s worth of food and drink for the $x,000 that the ticket has cost. They have taken to loaning out Bose noise cancelling headsets too which are really nice – good marketing by Bose as I now want to get a set.

On the other end of the scale, I have taken a lot of Embraer ERJ small regional jets when they were popular a few years ago. Basic accommodation, but not too bad. My return flight from DCS a couple of years ago was on Spirit, and let’s just say – never again. I used to fly Southwest a lot when I lived in BHM so I was expecting something similar from a low cost airline, but they really are the Ryanair of the US. Seats were tiny and hard, charged you for everything.

Anyway, the count is at 501, and about 530,000 miles, and has thankfully tailed off in the past few years. Less time traveling means more time at home :thumbup2: