Last Day at Sea

The sun – a burning ball of orange fire has just risen above the sea outlining clouds in shades of rose, red and yellow. It will be a good day with quiet seas. The last full day of our cruise I think the plan is to get organized, sorted, packed and be ready to leave the ship early in the morning.

Of course, we had not counted on the air controllers strike in Frankfurt which cancelled over 140 flights yesterday with over 200 more on the chopping block today. It is one of those times when it is pretty hard to argue. Oh the one hand we all want to travel and to not have our personal lives interrupted. On the other, we all really want to fly safely. Kind of like with pilots – automated systems can and have landed planes without incident when pilots have been incapacitated. The pilots are there for when circumstances (like having to ditch a plane on a river) need judgement that is just not going to come from an automated system.

A lot of air traffic control can be handled by automated systems. Provided, and this is a large assumption with all the critical caveats – the pilots actually do what they are told and when. One pilot out of lane by a few hundred meters can wreck chaos and potentially cost lives. Take a human overseeing the system to yell, scream, cajole and warn off everyone else – especially in the case of emergency.

Yes, I want to fly cheaply. But if I have to kick in an extra Euro every flight toward that safety it would be a small price to pay for my security.

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One Response to Last Day at Sea

  1. AlisonH says:

    Safe travels…

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