What’s it like flying home these days?
First of all, I am becoming more particular (some might say persnickety or downright ornery) but I am finding that business class is almost a necessity. The seat and legroom room in economy is almost non-existent!!

Anyway, after ST’s early family Christmas dinner on Monday, I re-packed and Tuesday morning took the rental car back to YUL and checked in. I had some work to do so I availed myself of the AC Maple Leaf Lounge before catching a flight to YYZ where I had a lengthy layover — again spent at the Maple Leaf Lounge. I managed to get even more work done before catching the evening flight to YVR (in order to catch the midnight flyer into YYF).

The crews in the cabins of each flight were exceptional. The food was quite good and although they didn’t have any Canadian wines nor single malt scotch the grape juice was more than palatable and the Johnny Walker Black was certainly an acceptable alternative. The flights themselves were reasonably devoid of turbulence and the sound system gave me a varied package — lots of classical, some really good jazz and even on occasion a bit of enjoyable country.

But all that was ancillary to a pensive mood that swept over me on the YYZ/YVR flight. I actually had begun to notice it in the Lounge at Dorval where the majority of the people seemed to be rather young! They were energetic, mostly talking on their phones but some were in groups and I could hear the conversations revolving around great new ideas or potential organizational expansion or just interesting human resource management stuff. On the flight itself, the business class was complete with a total range of ages from perhaps the early thirties to mid-eighties as well as a variety of colour and gender. But when I sat down as we left Pearson, I was conscious that I was perhaps one of maybe three people over 65…

The younger people got me thinking about my early days as a consultant. I had been awarded a Gold EnRoute Card in the mid-seventies which gave me access to the early versions of the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges (shortly thereafter I was similarly granted Kanata Club membership for access to Canadian Pacific Airlines lounges). When I’d go in, I was by far the youngest, and there were next to no women at all to speak of… At times I would be the focus of the conversation both directly and as an object: what did I do? why was I always flying? etc., etc. It was a cool thing in a way as it gave me an opportunity to ask questions and learn a bit about the wider world of business and travel. The only downside — there weren’t many my age, to ask about their take on these same topics. The other benefit was that conversations could be had with famous folk — Silken Laumen the incredible Olympic rower, Danny McManus and Matt Dunnigan CFL quarterbacks, Arnold Palmer the golfer, senior executives from innumerable corporations, high level officials in government including cabinet ministers are just some examples of people I met and conversed with in my younger years in that rarefied world.

And now, that all has past. Occasionally a younger person will engage me in a brief conversation in the plane; but usually only for a bit as neither of us speak the same corporate language. And, the Lounges are too big now and they don’t have the old-style bars in many of them. As well, people are more likely to be in a hurry — at least that is how it seems. There are no Gold EnRoute cards — we gain entrance either because of our frequent flyer status or because we are in business class on the next flight to begin with. It’s all more diverse: age, ethnicity, reason-for-flying, gender, even attitude. In a way, it’s now something I can truly say: I can remember when… And if I’m not careful, that can also make me sound a little too old. But this last trip home made me realize that I was part of an era — the rise of the Airline Lounge — and now I am witnessing its shift into a more commonplace setting. There are so many people flying, for so many reasons and airlines are squeezing as many as they can into the “cattle car”. Thankfully I can escape that squishy-ness most of the time, but it isn’t into some enclave of the rich and famous — it’s now simply to allow me to stretch out a bit, enjoy a meal and have some fine beverages…

I was never really ever rich — but the experiences in business class and the airline lounges certainly gave me an energetic confidence boost in my somewhat more youthful days running my consulting firm. The other night I realized how lucky I had been to be part of that era, almost accidentally (had my travel agent of the time not heard about the Gold EnRoute Card and requested one for her top client I wouldn’t likely even have known about it, let alone tried to get one). This time, I was especially thankful to the flight crews at each landing and I verbally expressed my gratitude — they probably didn’t know exactly why though — this older guy smiling as he left a comfortable flight, realizing that forty years really has been a time of transition and transformation in the airline world…they smiled back, not realizing that my presence will lessen in the years ahead, because my time has been…

Thank you Air Canada, United Airlines, Singapore Airlines and the others in the Star Alliance (and the dearly departed Canadian Pacific which was not part of Star Alliance). You still make flying fun, you make me comfortable, you even give me my space — even if I am no longer part of the main stream, let alone the “up & comers”!!

g.w.