I love airlines and airports and airplanes and all that, but the thing is, that’s all because I love commercial aviation.
I love the international airports, the airlines, the Boeings, and to a lesser extent the Airbuses.
The fact that I love all that stuff doesn’t mean I love everything with wings.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about private jets and single-engine two-seaters. Even military craft don’t get me going. Sure F-18s and the like are impressive, but I don’t care about them like I do about the commercial planes and the airlines.
The planes are a big part of it, no doubt, but there’s more.
I love the airports. I love the coming together of people all over the world for three reasons that are both common and individual in nature. They are all at the airport either arriving, departing, or helping loved ones do one of those two things. The reasons why they arrive and depart, though are individual. Business. Leisure. Family Obligation. Education. Starting Over. Soul Searching. There are countless reasons why we come and go they way we do. It’s a part of humanity itself, and large commercial airports are beautiful pictures of this very human occurrence. All the humanity on the inside coexists with, and eventually becomes part of the great mechanical ballet outside that is orchestrated by the Air Traffic Control tower. Takeoffs. Landings. Holding Patterns. Taxi for Takeoff. Taxi to the Gate. One mistake could mean disaster. Precision is of great importance. It’s beautiful.
I love the airlines. Even for all the hassle they can cause. I love the branding and visual identities. The colors. The logos. The design elements they choose to use on their airplanes. I love Delta’s Widget. I love Lufthansa’s crane. I love Aeroflot’s winged hammer and sickle. I love American Airlines’ shiny fuselages. I love KLM’s blue and Aer Lingus’ green. I love that airlines are charged with the moving of millions and millions of people per year, and by and large, they make it work. I love that any given international airport is served by any number of airlines large and small, and that each airline has a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship with the airport. Without the airlines, there are no planes and no passengers for the airport. Without the airport, the airlines have nowhere to go. Nowhere to give and receive the passengers. Nowhere to refuel. Nowhere to begin and end each journey.
I love the romanticism of it all. The idea that a great metal bird will whisk you away to destinations near and far. I love the Boeing 747, the Queen of the Sky. No aircraft is more iconic, more indicative of this romanticism than she. Although it no longer flies today, I love Pan American World Airways, known to most as Pan Am. Pan Am is the quintessential airline. No other airline in history has painted such a vivid picture of the romanticism of travel. No other airline has both painted that vivid picture and made it an accessible reality. Other airlines have outlived it, sure. Some of today’s airlines fly bigger planes and provide more extravagant amenities than Pan Am ever did, but it’s not the same. There’s just something about the way that Pan Am in it’s heyday that can and will never be touched by another airline. I love Concorde. Even though she was a relatively short-lived airliner, she was a beautiful and glamorous airliner. Concorde exemplified the glamor and romanticism of air travel in a way that only the mighty 747 could top.
The Blue Angels will never excite or interest me the way an American Airlines or Lufthansa 747 does. I don’t know the specifications of your single-engine Cessna. Commercial aviation is its own unique brand of intrigue that speaks to me in a way that other forms of aviation simply do not, have not, and never will.
