So British Airways is developing ‘crew welfare protocols’ for 20-plus hour flights. How terribly modern. How terribly decadent.
Let us pause to reflect that a century ago, men sailed the Atlantic in canvas ships, ate weevil-ridden biscuits, and thought nothing of a voyage lasting weeks. Now we fret over a day in a pressurised aluminium tube with air conditioning and a choice of films. The fall of Rome was preceded by a similar obsession with comfort.
The Victorian era, by contrast, prized fortitude. We have forgotten what it means to endure. A 20-hour flight is a luxury, not a hardship.
The real question is not how to make it more comfortable, but whether we have the moral fibre to sit still for 20 hours without demanding a ‘wellness programme’. The crew, poor souls, will now be subjected to ‘fatigue management’ and ‘circadian rhythm optimisation’. What next?
A mandated nap for passengers? Let us save our sympathy for those who truly suffer: the man who must explain to his grandchildren why he could not survive a flight to Sydney without a lavender-scented eye mask. The protocols miss the point.
The point is not to eliminate discomfort. The point is to learn to bear it. We are producing a generation of soft-handed, soft-headed people who cannot tolerate a minor inconvenience without a corporate intervention.
Call me old-fashioned, but I suspect the crew would be better served by a stiff upper lip and a good book. But no. We must have protocols.
We must have committees. We must have a ‘stakeholder engagement’ to discuss the ethical implications of serving breakfast at 35,000 feet. Rome fell.
The Empire declined. And now we cannot even fly to Australia without a psychological evaluation. For shame.
