Flying High or Riding Low The True Cost of Air Travel

Ever found yourself squished in a middle seat on a packed flight, tallying up the hidden costs of that budget airline ticket? That's the opening salvo in our no-holds-barred discussion about the rollercoaster world of air travel. From my personal run-ins with the laughable lows of budget carriers to the lofty heights of luxury airlines, we strip back the curtain to expose what's really behind those cheap fares. We get real about the true cost of 'savings' and contrast it with the unmatched service on international flights—think Emirates and Singapore Airlines. It's a candid exploration of the industry that's equal parts humorous and informative, perfect for anyone who’s ever felt like cattle in the sky or dreamed of champagne at cruising altitude.

Strap in as I also share the unvarnished truth about the search for comfort in the skies, especially for those of us who are taller and more prone to in-flight claustrophobia. Tales of luxury travel dreams and cramped economy realities will have you nodding along, whether you're a frequent flyer or an occasional traveler. And if that's not enough, we leave you with a teaser for our next conversation on food decisions and their effects on our bodies. It's not just about travel; it's a lifestyle choice—continually striving for improvement amidst the everyday challenges. So, whether you're curious about navigating the skies in style or just looking for a relatable travel tale, this episode promises insights and laughs in equal measure.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Do you ever lift your head up from your phone, look around and think to yourself my God, everything is weird. Well, we do A lot. This is the Observation Station, a unique, entertaining and hilarious podcast. If we observe it, we talk about it. Anything and everything, anything and everything. Let's get weird and let's have some fun. This is the Observation Station and now your host, tommy Heights.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Observation Station. This is your host, tommy Heights, here back with another kind of like a judgemental episode. You know it is what it is. This one is going to be about what your airlines choices says about yourself. So there's a lot of things going around right now of understanding that you really get what you pay for with the airlines. If you're flying spirit, I don't want to talk to you Plain and simple. Spirit Airlines is the bane of anybody's existence. There's no way that people haven't understood when you see the fights on TV. There's one airline Spirit. This isn't happening on Emirates Airlines. We got one thing going here $50 round trip tickets. It ends up being more when you look at factoring all the costs.

Speaker 2: 1:49

When you fly a cheap budget airline. The whole point of a budget airline really is to sucker in the people that don't understand all the hidden fees that come along with flying these cheap fares from the get-go. It's not like oh wait a minute, I have a checked bag, carry-on, personal item XYZ and forget about having it where you want to bring your carry-on with these small little cabins that they have above, unless you're first class, which, in spirit, really the only first class is probably being the pilot. Who knows, even if that pilot probably has it where. They have the guy up there. That's like look man, you're on your last leg. You got fired from two jobs. You started off united, then you went to jet blue. Now you're here. Keep it easy, no crazy stuff. All right, man, just keep it 100.

Speaker 2: 2:52

When you fly anywhere, it depends on the airport also what you're dealing with, especially if you have a TSA. In certain airports some are nicer than others. When you're in Boise, idaho, they're very nice TSA people. When you're in Atlantic City, new Jersey or Atlanta, not so nice. So specifically, the experiences of people when they travel is completely different. What airline I like to fly? Delta, they treat you like a human being on that airline.

Speaker 2: 3:30

It's kind of funny domestically how we're all just thinking that America is the best. If you really look at it the other countries, like the Arabic countries, you see Qatar Airways, emirates, things like that. They have the highest grades in the consumer reports of traveling for global ratings. Our American domestic airlines, like even Delta, is not really even close to the top when it comes to the foreign airlines, how the service is so much more robust than what we have domestically. You think, oh my God, america is the best. There's people that come to the United States, fly our airlines and think, wow, this is a very low end experience. So everybody has their own perspective.

Speaker 2: 4:23

United, I feel like I get treated like a cow, just kind of like cattle. Like, sit down, sit down here, we're gonna do the safety video. Pop up, pop up, pop up. Here's your meal, slapped on whatever it is here. Peel it back and we're gonna pick up the garbage. So it's a little bit more of a cattle car thing for United. Okay, that's fine. Another budget airline that I had flown was Frontier. Frontier is another garbage airline, or Allegiant Airlines, another one.

Speaker 2: 4:59

One time I was flying out of Fort Wayne, indiana, so I was checking in. The lady was checking me in for the bags and it was the same lady that checked me in for the boarding. I'm like, okay, this is interesting, I've never had that. I know it's a small airport. Then I get on the plane, just open up, I have the window seat and I'm thinking, all right, let's get this show on the road, backing up the plane to get off for takeoff, just relaxing, putting on my headphones, da, da, da, da, da. And then you're all of a sudden then just kind of looking out and the same lady that's doing the checking in on my bags to boarding the plane all of a sudden is appearing on the tarmac with the orange glow sticks, where she's doing the directions for the plane to back up. I'm thinking, oh my God, what kind of cost cutting measures does this airline have? It's nothing short of being the pilot. I mean. Look at this.

Speaker 2: 5:58

So the experience was terrible. First off, that whole flight was delayed an entire day. So the day before we were sitting there it's probably supposed to take off at like 2 pm. I'm there always like three hours early, no matter how big the airport is. So I'm sitting there and thinking, okay, whatever, the weather wasn't bad at all, but the flight. I couldn't even remember the reason, but it just kept getting delayed and delayed. There wasn't even any bad weather outside. It kept getting delayed after hour, after hour after hour and we're thinking, oh my God, come on, it's not like a major airport that's got another you know million flights going to metropolitan areas, even though this was going to just like a Punta Gorda, florida. So nothing crazy. But they kept delaying the flight, delaying the flight, thinking what the?

Speaker 2: 6:52

hell's going on. Then they say, after being delayed for geez, seven hours you know I'm sitting there oh my God that we're gonna have to wait till the next day and they get on. Their people are yelling obscenities to the stand over there. What's going on? What the hell's this, all this crap? And some lady starts breaking down. She goes oh my God, I'm gonna miss my father's funeral. So things were not going well. And another group of people were starting to cry too, because they had a cruise in Florida already booked and the cruise doesn't wait for anybody. This isn't you know what I'm saying. They got a schedule when they're on the sea. So you're thinking to yourself oh my God, these people are going to miss their cruise. So thank God for living here in South Florida, because if I miss my cruise, well, it's probably because I'm six feet under, you know, since I'm already here. So this is how it goes.

Speaker 2: 7:59

If you want to take a choice of saying, oh well, let's cut corners, with the airlines saying, oh, let's do complete economy, this economy, that economy, this, well, you're really missing out on a lot of different things, like even seat selection, as stupid as it sounds. When you can upgrade, you're like in main cabin, not premium economy, like a grade or two under that and you get to pick the seat you like. You feel like a camp and you're like, oh my God, yeah, I like that seat for this flight and that one for this leg. You know it's nice. Firstly, it's like you actually feel like you're making a choice, not being forced into the most terrible last choice seat that, whatever, when you check in, the airline's giving to you because everybody else in the entire flight they got to pick the seats you know always leaves probably the worst seats. And look, this is how it goes when you're on these airlines. A lot of times it's kind of a thing where it depends how long the flight is. It's where maybe you want to cut costs and measures. I can't justify spirit airlines, even for an hour flight. So if you want to fly like a United I've tried doing it where it's like, oh, united's much cheaper than Delta and you see how you get treated on the flights like no, you don't want to deal with this kind of stuff anymore.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Delta's airline. The attendance on the planes are so much better than a lot of the other airlines domestically it's genuinely understandable how the upper echelon of flyers prefer Delta, especially if you have, like, the Delta lounge for the Sky Club access. So nice, especially like even at four in the morning in Fort Lauderdale, like 4.15, they already have it where our breakfast spreads out there, where there's like quinoa, yogurt, parfaits, orange juice, eggs, sausage, bacon, everything the extremely nice cooks, not the garbage stuff you get at a holiday and actually you have the like the sausage links are actually huge, it's really nice. So the thing is, everybody does have a different flying experience, especially depending on your income level, understanding that not everybody can afford to have the choice of flying whatever they'd like. It's kind of, you know, whatever they can afford. When you have a lounge access to whatever the airport is because some airports are so small they don't even have lounges. I've said it on many episodes before, the experience is much, much, much more relaxed, especially when you're in a place where it's a large airport and there's so much noise going on on the intercoms, the golf carts whizzing past you, the babies crying it's terrible. So hence the lounge is where to relax. So a lot of places now have quiet rooms so you can even go into there and it's like even classed up, soundproofed inside the lounge where it's more or less kind of like a library, so it's extremely quiet, like you, don't? You're not making really many, many sounds in there. It's a relaxing place. That is something like a safe space for people that are on the move. This is something different than someone that's used to being on a chaotic.

Speaker 2: 11:43

You know the goat run where they're getting frisked by TSA. You know halfway. You know questionable TSA. They're always like excuse me, sir, step to the side here, move your pants up, drop your belt. Excuse me, I'm going to need to feel your insides over here, and all that's what I did. What's going on here? Shake your pants, lift your leg and oh, it's like don't you have an X-ray machine? It's like what else do you want me to do? It's like the Macarena for you.

Speaker 2: 12:17

It's like, first off, who the heck is wanting to be a TSA agent? I'm gonna go out there and say a lunatic First and foremost anybody that says, yeah, I'm a first responder for all the terrorism that is gonna be coming through the frontlines of whatever airport here. And I want to tell you, how many people have you found on the news or online of a legitimate source to say TSA agent Ricky Johnson saved whatever so-and-so airport of a neutralized, a terroristic threat? Never, absolutely never. When have you heard this? This is how it goes. Yeah, I never knew that I was stealing from this guy's bag. That's what these TSA people they're getting caught for taking stuff out when they're like searching bags and whatnot. It's like, dude, you work here. You don't see all the cameras that are here looking at people already. What the hell are you doing? Trying to steal stuff in broad daylight? I've never even understood that. It's like the background checks to even probably get a federal job like this have got to be so immense. But whatever it is, people are prone to doing all kinds of stuff, no matter how many background checks. It's really the best you can do preliminarily to check on somebody's how prone they are to causing a problem really.

Speaker 2: 13:50

So you know I want to try some other airlines, especially at some point. First class I haven't done first class yet. That would be a cool one for like a long haul flight. A couple of first classes that look really cool are Singapore Airlines. They have this like little suite, so it's like a mini hotel room on their flight. That would be a cool. Emirates first class that's like 15 or 20,000 for a flight there. They have a shower, a bar, which is kind of funny because in the Arabic culture there's no, I think, drinking. So it's kind of funny how they have a bar in the air, but it is what it is there.

Speaker 2: 14:32

So I would love to have it where another thing would be to go on an airline private. That I haven't done also yet it would be fun to have it where you don't even have to deal with TSA even in general, especially when you're in crowds. I have the pre-check and clear and all that, but just dealing with crowds in general, that's the worst. Still the thing that a credit card, if they had like a little perk of priority bag check-in, that would be the best, because that's one hiccup that I see is. Like, the checking in of bags is the one thing that I see that if you want to try to shimmy your way into there, that is a way that I can't find yet to say, hey, I'd love to have priority checked baggage Overall.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Look, here's how it goes. You have to plan accordingly when you do these flights, especially if it's for, you know, not business, because that's kind of like a ride off where your company's paying for it, but leisure. These are things that flights can change day to day by hundreds and hundreds of dollars. So understanding if you don't have the budget to be going to say, hey look, I only fly this airlines, you got a budget accordingly. The thing is, of this episode, your airlines has a lot to say about you. It's like the vehicle that you drive. If you drive a Toyota, I can see that you're mindful and understanding of a quality vehicle. If you drive a, you know Mitsubishi or Saturn in 2024, with temporary tags and questioning your insurance ability to have a claim. So look it just, everything is an observation. That's why that's the point of this show.

Speaker 2: 16:24

It's a feeling where If people want to fly what they fly and say I don't care to go subpar just because I'm saving money and I'm only on the flight for so many hours, so be it. Some people like to slum it like that. That's up to them. It's not me, because I want to make it to one it from a to b when I'm flying in the most relaxing possible manner. That's just something I figured out is Different than driving is flying.

Speaker 2: 16:53

It's like already I'm six, four cramped already. It's not something where I Already like being on those planes, everybody always behind me. It seems to be where they like to put their knees in my back, and I don't even recline and it's like you're looking at it. It's like, dude, aren't you like five, eight, the hell are you doing putting your knees? It's like I'm six, four, I'm trying to, like, cross my knees, so I'm not even touching the person in front of me. So, but you know, everybody has their own way of doing stuff. It's not saying karma's gonna get this guy bad, it is what it is. Until you get the first class, then you have to Deal with what you're dealing with. Once you get the big-time seats, then you don't have to deal with the guy with the knee in the back of your, your seat, and that's how I I think about it. So get to the point where you don't have to complain about that, and that's how I look at it. So hey, that being said there, look, here's how it's gonna go. You make your own life happen by the choices that you may.

Speaker 2: 18:03

All right, so wanted to wrap up this episode here and and just kind of give a little bit of a teaser for the next episode. It's going to be the cuisine and how your body feels Eating it. So it's going to be Different food choices and it's like, well, why do we eat this and what does it make us feel like? So, all right guys, take it easy, stay happy, even if right now I see that maybe the economy is not doing the best. It's something that where we have to get better at what we do. So it's just read do something even if it's not fun. Make yourself just a little bit better, all right guys. Well, take it easy and until next time, all right, bye, bye.

Speaker 1: 18:52

You've been listening to the observation station. We find everyday life and everyday situations Hilarious. We hope you've enjoyed the show. We know we had a blast. Make sure to like, rate and review, and be sure to tell a friend about the show. That would help too. See you next time on the observation station. You.