Recently I travelled to Himachal for an event that we do
annually for our customers, but this post is not about the event but about the
journey and as the title suggests it is about the Window seat.
While booking the ticket I went through the options trying
to understand how much extra the airline wants me shell out for the window seat,
though I have always allowed auto assignment to do this for me and I have been
lucky but still I was not willing to take this chance as this route provides
some great views of the snowcapped mountains, unfortunately there were no seats
available to purchase so I decided I will try some different tactics this time
as I ended up getting the isle seat and sometime people are willing to exchange
isle with the window seat.
We boarded the flight and to my happiness a senior citizen
came up to my seat and asked me to move over as he was assigned that window
seat, I politely asked him sir getting in/out will be a problem in case you
wanted to use the restroom and I am willing to give you my isle seat in case
you wanted to? No thank you! he replied.
We settled down with the announcement “all ground staff to
deplane” and to my surprise my fellow passenger who sat on the window seat had
already shut the window shades and was dreaming (half asleep), airhostess
walked over and reminded him to open the shades which he did for a few minutes
and with the announcement “cabin crew to your stations for take-off” he went ahead
to shut it again 😊 and sleep. 25 minutes into the flight
refreshments were served and my neighbor didn’t even bother to open his eyes
and woke up only after the announcement “Cabin crew to your stations for
landing”.
To my surprise he said it was a long flight and I was like ‘Yes,
and you made the most of it by sleeping’. Out of curiosity I asked him sir if
you were to sleep the whole journey why did you take that seat as I wanted to
sit there, he told me a few reasons why he did that, and they are as below.
-
He didn’t like people disturbing him while going
out and coming in from the washrooms.
-
He absolutely didn’t like the food trolley brushing
his elbows while moving through the isle.
Upon concluding this he asked me what was my objective
behind getting that seat? I said sir, the reasons are very small, but I want to
you consider next time if someone makes the same request again.
-
VIP access to the cloud – you are closer to the
God and for a sales guy reaching the far end of the sales quarter this gives an
amazing chance to appeal God closely for a breakthrough quarter.
-
Pardon me – Since you are away from the cabin attendant
standing in the isle every time you respond to them you can start with PARDON
ME gives a kind of cool feeling and makes you appear more sophisticated 😊
-
Instagram ka pressure – clear goal of beating my
colleagues who have million posts from the window seat.
-
The deplane race – once we land, wait for the
whole plane to deplane rather than standup as soon as the plane comes to a
halt.
Once I was done and under an impression that he has heard me
well I asked him Sir what is your stand on this? He said, “apologies but the battery
of my hearing aid ran out as soon as you said the first sentence” and since
then he has no idea of what I said apart from seeing my lips move. He assured
me that he will catch up with me and discuss this further so that he does not take
away someone’s pleasure ride into the clouds.
