De-Stressing the Airline Shuffle
Oct. 4, 2005 — -- Sometimes it feels like girding for battle, this process of preparing for a commercial airline flight. Whether you're an experienced "road warrior" appropriately equipped with the requisite roll-on bag and laptop case/purse/briefcase (your "personal" item), or a first-time flyer somewhat bewildered by the obstacle course that airline travel has become, our common denominator is the stuff heart attacks are made of: stress.
The list of stressors is very long: how to make sure you aren't paying too much for your ticket, which airline to fly, what schedule to select, whether to check a bag and which bag to bring, whether to trust web-based services or the airline for your ticketing, and whether to give up the security of a traditional paper ticket bought in person -- and all these worries and decisions are encountered before arriving at the airport.
Once there, the process requires understanding how to conform to all the requirements of check-in, having the right identification documents, packing bags and carry-ons correctly, dealing with parking, timing, and planning ahead to avoid starvation, as well as simply knowing how to find the gate.
In some ways it's surprising we don't require people to be licensed before granting them the privilege of becoming passengers, so sophisticated is the degree of detailed knowledge required to smoothly use the system and not hold up everyone else.
And sometimes it would probably be appropriate for the airlines to hand out Valium with your bag of peanuts.
Ever slump in your airline seat and buckle up only to find yourself lightheaded and extremely sleepy even in midmorning? That's PTBS, Post-Traumatic Boarding Stress Syndrome. OK, no licensed psychologists have signed off on PTBS as a recognized malady, but the effects are very real and very fatiguing. In short, it's not just the time zone shuffle that renders you somnambulant and exhausted at your destination, it's the stress of the entire process.
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