begin quote from:
I tried a semi-private JSX flight. It was wonderful and I feel weird about it.
As soon as the UberX driver pulled her Toyota Camry into the dark parking lot on Earhart Road in Oakland, I felt out of place.
There was no signage visible in the dark, no indication that I was in the right place to catch a semi-private JSX flight to Seattle. Except for the BMWs and Range Rovers lined up for valet parking — that was a pretty clear indication.
JSX, previously branded as JetSuite X, is a small, short-haul airline that promises a "private-like" air travel experience for not much more than the cost of standard commercial travel. I paid $119 for my one-way ticket to Seattle. (My return flight on Alaska Airlines was barely cheaper at $112, making the all-in cost $231. It would have been $185 had I flown Alaska both ways.)
It was 6:30 a.m. and I took my place in line outside the “terminal.” What the building really looked like from the front was a small airport motel, something along the lines of a Holiday Inn. The line of about 15 people snaked from a podium inside to outside in the drizzle, but no one seemed particularly stressed or frantic like you might find down the street at Oakland International Airport. There were no crying babies or people wearing sweat pants here, either.
Looking around at the others in line only amplified my imposter syndrome. I was one of three women waiting to check in. Thirteen men joined us, many of them wearing business suits, many of them smelling like eau de business man cologne.
The woman behind the check-in podium made a last call for passengers taking the 6:45 a.m. flight to Burbank. Despite working alone, she had the line moving quickly. As I got toward the front I grew inexplicably nervous. To be clear, I had purchased a ticket for this flight. I had every right and reason to be there. But I had never gone through these exact motions before. I was worried that by not knowing the unspoken rules of the game, I might commit a gaffe. I might out myself as a budget airline peasant, more comfortable in the cattle-herding boarding area of a Spirit Airlines flight than in the lobby of a private plane start-up.
I handed the woman my I.D., she tagged my bag and swabbed the surfaces of my possessions. “For security,” she said. That was the only security I’d go through that morning. She handed me a boarding pass. I had cleared my first hurdle, and headed to the lounge.
The lounge, with its hanging plants and word art, seemed more designed with me in mind (a millennial journalist wearing cut-off jeans) than a suit-wearing executive. I dropped my bag on a chair and headed toward the coffee. But then came the announcement: It was time to board. No coffee, no snacks, no time to connect to WiFi.
There were no boarding groups, no crowds. There was just a 10-yard walk outside the door to the Embraer ERJ jet. I walked up the short staircase and crouched down to avoid hitting my head as I entered the plane. Here came the first real obstacle: I couldn’t find my seat. I was looking at the overhead area for 4A, but found no labels. “They’re down there,” the businessman behind me pointed out. I shuffled into my seat, grateful my faux pas only disappointed the guy in the suit and didn’t spark some sort of in-flight viral incident.
My initial reaction when I saw the seat was — to be honest — disappointment. When I thought of a private jet (even a semi-private jet), I was thinking something along the lines of how the Warriors fly to away games. In reality, the JSX seat itself looked like a standard economy seat — no cushy business loungers or lie-flat beds. However, there was plenty of legroom. I could cross and uncross my legs easily with several inches to spare. There was a tray table, a seatback storage pouch and a place to stash your personal item under the seat in front of you (there are no overhead compartments on the plane, but you can check two bags for free). The seats are arranged in rows of three, with a single seat on the left and a set of two seats on the right. There are 30 seats total (10 rows of three). When booking my flight, I selected one of the single seats, so I could feel less awkward about snapping pictures of everything for this story. (It did not work. I still felt very awkward.)
Everything moved so quickly. I had just pulled up in the parking lot 25 minutes ago and they were already closing the plane door. While the seats may not have been particularly luxe — there was no champagne and no bowtie-wearing butler — the efficiency of the whole process felt like a luxury.
The plane started moving and I wondered if I was supposed to turn my phone on airplane mode. No one told me to turn my phone on airplane mode. Maybe only rookies would think that rule applied here.
Takeoff was smooth and we lifted above the clouds. I snapped a few cliché pictures out the window. I still felt awkward.
Once we were at cruising altitude, the flight attendant came down the aisle with a basket of snacks — the kinds you'd find in the pantry of a house where the family only shops at Whole Foods. Puffed veggie chips seemed like a popular choice but I opted for a bag of mustache-shaped Belgian cookies (weird artistic choice, but they tasted like cookie butter so I’m not complaining). The snacks and drinks — including alcohol — are complimentary. But it was 7 a.m. I ordered a coffee.
The drinks were larger than what you'd get flying economy on other airlines. Instead of a few sips poured into a tiny plastic cup, passengers were served full cans of sparkling water, soda and juice, or 12-oz. coffees and teas.
When I went to the restroom, I discovered another unexpected perk: a toilet that doesn't burst your eardrums when it flushes. (Seriously, the quiet flush toilet in the bathroom was one of my favorite things about flying in that plane.) All these little things — snack choices, full-sized drinks, leg-room and toilets that don’t make you deaf — weren’t luxuries per se, but they made flying a bit better than what we’ve been conditioned to expect from air travel.
RELATED STORIES
I was settling into the pleasant flight experience and the imposter syndrome was wearing off, only to be replaced by another unwelcome feeling: guilt.
Nothing reminds me of my socioeconomic place in society quite like air travel. I have enough money to travel, but more often than I'd like it's on a budget airline. I've endured red-eye flights in seats that don't recline just to save a few hundred bucks. I'll sit there trying to nod off into my neck pillow, convincing myself it was worth it.
Nothing reminds me of my socioeconomic place in society quite like air travel. I have enough money to travel, but more often than I'd like it's on a budget airline. I've endured red-eye flights in seats that don't recline just to save a few hundred bucks. I'll sit there trying to nod off into my neck pillow, convincing myself it was worth it.
On non-budget flights, even if my seat does recline two to four inches, there's still the blatant reminder of a class system in place. As I walk through the business class cabin back toward my rightful place at the back of the plane, I fill with rage. What do they have that I don't have? (The answer is money.) What did they do right to deserve such humane treatment? (The answer is nothing?)
Now I was finally getting a break from the dehumanization of air travel, but I still felt guilty. After a lifetime of flying economy, with conditions worsening every year, it felt so foreign to be treated like a human being while flying in a metal tube with a bunch of other human beings. It felt weird that there was a relatively small price you could pay to experience that. It felt even weirder that I had paid it. I wished every flight could be more like this one. Not just for myself, but for everyone.
My vaguely anti-capitalist musings were interrupted by the announcement we'd be landing soon. There was a bit of turbulence upon descent, but I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't on assignment with the explicit task of noticing the minute details of the journey. I was offered a piece of hard candy as I deplaned. I was off the plane, retrieved my bag and in the back seat of a Lyft in six minutes flat.
"Good morning, ma'am. How are you, ma'am?" the driver asked me. The formal title kicked off another round of discomfort and feeling like I was being treated way above my pay-grade. Another anti-capitalist rant for another day, perhaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment