Patrick Smith is an airline pilot, air travel columnist and author. In his spare time, Smith has visited more than 70 countries and always asks for a window seat. His Ask the Pilot column, from which portions of this website have been compiled, runs regularly on Salon.com.
Cheapflights: What’s your routine when you fly?
Patrick Smith: I am assigned mostly to international flights these days. It’s exactly the type of flying I have always wanted to do, and I enjoy it immensely. But the flights are very long, and my assignments can take me out of the country for as long as eight or 10 days. Preparing for these trips takes a certain discipline of routine that domestic flying does not. For example, getting adequate rest beforehand. If I’m looking at a 13-hour flight on Friday, my preparations begin a full day prior, getting a good night’s sleep and tying up whatever loose ends need to be tied up at home. Packing, meanwhile, is something I’ve got down to a science and can usually put off until the last moment. I can pack for a ten-day assignment, with multiple climates, in about 20 minutes.
CF: What is your biggest travel pet peeve?
PS: Almost everything one encounters at the TSA checkpoint. But that’s too easy.
Elsewhere… How about indulgent parents who don’t even attempt to silence their screeching toddlers on planes? Or, those passengers who, when boarding, stow their carry-on bags in the first empty bin they come to, rather than using a bin close to their assigned seat. The forward bins then fill up prematurely, forcing people to travel backwards down the aisle, against traffic, to stow and later retrieve their things. This slows the already tedious boarding and disembarking process.
CF: What kind of trip do you prefer?
PS: I’m all for the guilty pleasures of a five-star hotel, but my favorite trips are those outside of resort areas and big cities. I like rainforests, mountains, countryside villages….
CF: Although it’s hard to choose, what’s your favorite destination?
PS: Botswana. It’s primordially beautiful, and, unlike most African safari destinations, not yet spoiled by commercial tourism. More than 30 percent of Botswana’s territory – greater than any other nation on earth – has been set apart as protected parkland, guarded against poaching by a military that fortunately has little else to do. It’s here where you’ll find nothing less than the planet’s most superb safari opportunities.
CF: Cheapflights is all about value. What location do you think offers the best value for travelers?
PS: Latin America – Central America in particular. There are some spectacular and remarkably affordable places within only a few hours flying time of most American cities. Elsewhere, Turkey remains fairly inexpensive – at least compared to the rest of Europe – and offers some of the planet’s most impressive historical sites.
CF: What is your ideal airport, and what’s your advice on how to best enjoy it?
PS: My ideal airport is a quiet airport, without excessive public address announcements and free of those infernal, unsilenceable CNN monitors at every gate. This is something that strikes you about airports in Europe and Asia: not only are they often loaded with amenities (and easily accessible by public transportation), they are peaceful!
CF: What would you classify as a hypothetical travel nightmare?
PS: This.
CF: How does what you do for a living give you a unique angle on traveling?
PS: As an airline pilot I’m unsure how to begin answering this question. As an air travel columnist, though, who has spent the past eight years answering questions from the general public, I have learned a couple of things. The first is that people have a terrible habit of overreacting to minor malfunctions and problems. I understand that many travelers are nervous flyers, and that accurate information is hard to come by. However, those precautionary landings, pressurization problems, and landing gear malfunctions are almost never the near-death experiences that the media makes them out to be.
The second is to never, ever underestimate the contempt people hold for airlines, most of which is unfair. Despite all rumors to the contrary, the airlines are intentionally trying to screw you, make you late, or get you killed. Airlines are easy targets these days, but lost in all the anti-airline vitriol is the fact that never before has flying been more affordable. Airfares in 2011 are about what they were in 1983. I’ll be raked over the coals for saying that passengers have developed a sense of entitlement, but yes, it’s something like that. All passengers deserve dignity and respect, but you can’t expect 1950s-style luxury when you’re paying $199 to fly cross-country. Flying is also extraordinarily safe. There has not been a large-scale crash involving a major carrier in the United States in almost 10 years. That’s a record going back to the dawn of the jet age, if not earlier. For all of their fiscal woes, our carriers have maintained an impeccable safety record.
On the whole, flying is cheap, mostly reliable and remarkably safe. Rarely does anybody acknowledge this.
Cheapflights is proud to have guest voices express their opinions. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Cheapflights Media (USA) Inc.
