Travelling the Italian Way

What is loyalty, really? I know you can be loyal to a husband, a wife, a country, or a friend... but what about being loyal to an airline?

For five consecutive years I travelled from Tel Aviv to Toronto and back with Air Canada, faithfully collecting miles through their Aeroplan frequent flyer program.  After having flown with many different airlines in the past, I decided to make Air Canada “my airline” for a number of reasons - the leading reasons being that it was a direct flight and I felt I was supporting my “national” airline.

“National airline?” you say. “Isn’t that a little far-fetched? What about El Al? Surely they are more a national airline for you now. And they fly direct to Toronto, also.”

Well, yes. But I have one small, very significant problem with El Al. Put too many Israelis in a confined space and things just get nasty.

So one might call me a loyal Air Canada traveller. Well, at least until December 2012, that is,  when Air Canada and I parted ways and I travelled to Toronto and back with another airline. Did I feel guilty? A little. Did Air Canada really care? Probably not. And there lies the problem.

Over the years, I started to feel that I was being taken for granted by Air Canada. Instead of welcoming my business and adding in a few perks to reward me for my loyalty, Air Canada showed no real signs of wanting my business at all. Not once was I offered an upgrade, or a chance to exchange points for an upgrade. I never knew whether they would be offering special winter deals that year, and when they did offer, it was usually announced late in the year - in October or November. And I couldn’t wait that long before purchasing my December ticket. And when I flew to Scotland with another Star Alliance member airline earlier in the year, Air Canada wouldn’t honour the miles accumulated with that airline, providing some lame excuse. Except for the direct flight, and the feeling of “Oh Canada” as I entered the plane, I began to wonder whether there was really much of an advantage flying Air Canada. And then along came Alitalia.

Six years ago, at about the same time I joined the Air Canada frequent flyer program, I also  joined the Alitalia frequent flyer program on a whim. But when I discovered that Alitalia was experiencing financial difficulties, I decided that they were not an option at the time. However, over the years, Alitalia managed to get its act together through new financial arrangements and they began an aggressive marketing campaign. Which led one day to an offer that I found in my inbox - an offer I found quite difficult to refuse. 15% off any ticket to a destination of my choice. And not only 15% off the base fare, which Air Canada had once offered me (the base fare constituting only about a half of the total cost of the ticket before taxes and services are added on) - but 15% off the final price. The only catch was that I had to purchase a ticket between 10 p.m. that night and 5 a.m. the following morning. Usually I am not that spontaneous (ask my wife), but taking into account that Alitalia’s regular price for a round trip ticket to Toronto was already about a hundred dollars cheaper than Air Canada’s cheapest combination, and that all in all Alitalia’s price would be about three hundred dollars cheaper, I made the leap.

Now, you may say that I sold out my loyalty for $300, and in part, you may be right. But it was more than this. I felt sought after again. I felt that someone valued my business. I just hoped that there wasn’t another catch somewhere.

The only catch I could find was Rome airport where I had to catch my connecting flight. Even a Kupat Holim corridor has more seats than they have in a gate section at Rome airport. With little chance of finding a place to sit, you are left to wander the halls or sit down on the grubby floor. But it was only two hours between flights and I could excuse this small hindrance for the price offered. And when it came to flying Alitalia, I was pleasantly surprised. The flight from Tel Aviv to Rome was a bit cramped, like most flights within Europe, but the flight from Rome to Tel Aviv was spacious, with a personal screen on the back of each seat (although the movie selection was quite inferior to Air Canada’s selection).

So, I made it to Toronto. The only thing remaining was to see whether they would get me back to Tel Aviv in the new year.  And here was the icing on the cake.

You’d think that once they had “roped me in”, they would treat me with the same disregard as Air Canada. But here I was at Toronto Pearson International Airport, awaiting the return leg back to Israel, when I heard my name. “Will David Lloyd please come up to the desk for the Alitalia flight to Rome.” I walked up to the desk wondering whether they would tell me that I had only paid for half a ticket when a very pleasant woman attendant took my ticket and gave me a new one. “We are upgrading you to business class,” she said.

My first flight with Alitalia and I already got upgraded. Air Canada, suck on that! It is almost enough to get you to wave the Italian flag and learn to speak Italian. Would I fly with Alitalia again? Well, right now I see very good reason to travel the Italian way.

Arrivederci.

If airplanes were meant to fly

When our first child was three, we took him with us on a trip to Canada.
“We are going on an airplane!” we told him, much to his delight.
At that time, a bus took us from the old terminal building at Ben Gurion airport and drove us to the foot of the plane, where we climbed the steps up into the airplane.
After settling in and after a long strenuous 12 hours of keeping Edan amused during the flight, we finally landed in Toronto, heaving a sigh of relief as we walked through the “sleeve” from the plane into the terminal building.
Edan looked back at the airplane through the terminal window.
“When are we going up in an airplane?” he asked.
“We were just up in an airplane,” I answered, patiently. “That one,” I said pointing back to the airplane  through the window.
“No,” Edan said, pouting. “I want to go up in an airplane.”
Adva and I tried to dig deeply into our collective wisdom and convince Edan that we had been up in an airplane, but no matter what we said, he was not convinced, and it was clear that he would no longer trust anything that we said, not then, not ever.
For Edan, airplanes had nothing to do with being on the inside looking out.

There is a life lesson here. I just have to figure out what it is. And this year, 30 years later, I travelled the airwaves from Israel to Canada yet again. Or so it seemed. Now you never really see the plane on the outside. You walk into the plane through a sleeve at the new Ben Gurion terminal building and out of the plane through a sleeve at Pearson International. Yes, the plane does appear to take off, and there is constant turbulence through the next twelve hours, and then there is the bumpy landing. But were we flying? Really? Sometimes flying reminds me of that magic trick where the magician goes through one door on the stage and magically comes out through the door on the other side of the stage. Magic? Illusion?

All a matter of perspective, I suppose. I live in two parallel worlds: one in Israel, and the other in Canada. They both appear extremely far away from each other during the year. “Worlds apart”, one might say. Yet, all it takes is to walk through the door into a plane, count to 43,200, and walk back out. And “magic” - your body has been transported from one side of the world to the other, while your mind struggles to keep up.

I am waiting for “Beam me up Scotty” to become a reality. Many things which once seemed to be  science fiction have since become reality. Why not that also? The airline unions may have a problem with it, though. I can see the ensuing strikes as airlines move to body transportation machines. Of course, not everyone could be transported at once. There would still be lineups. Baggage might become an issue. Body weight might have to be factored in. They may still have to serve food and drinks while people wait in long lines. Maybe even play movies on widescreen tv or hand out handheld video players to entertain people while they wait. I’m sure that airlines, or whatever they may call themselves then, could tweak out a substantial profit.

And, as with anything, many people will look back with romantic nostalgia to the days of flight in an actual airplane, when this happens.

“When I was young, we travelled from continent to continent by flying in an actual airplane!”
“Gee dad, what was it like?”
“Well, if you looked down, you could see mountains. And they actually served us sitting down. No standing for hours awaiting your turn in the transportation booth. And the movies were better...”

Some people have a problem with change, of any type. They are used to something one way, and this makes that thing sacrosanct by default. For some people, the cinema came to an end when they moved from silent movies to talkies - and transportation lost its romantic appeal when we no longer rode the rough seas in a ship but flew high above completely detached from the earth below.