On Friday, March 13th, 2020, I took a flight from Toronto to Newark. I had taken 121 flights in the prior 365 days. I have taken zero in the 365 days since.
I've loved flying since I was probably five or six years old. I've written about that love for flying dozens of times on this blog. I've meticulously tracked each flight I've taken. I've obsessively tracked how many airlines and airports and aircraft I've flown on or through. One of the main reasons I chose a career in Consulting is the ability to fly - and the best year of that for my life was probably 2019 through March 2020 (below). I flew the longest flight in teh world. I flew to Cape Town - the flight with the longest stretch over water in the world. I never enjoyed a year up in the air more - and then it stopped.
When I took that last flight on March 13th, I definitely knew we were entering a complete new world. In reality the 'change' happened a couple days earlier, when we got an email from our client exec sponsor saying they (the client) were implementing a travel ban and therefore we would not be able to come to site. That was the same day that Rudy Gobert tested positive, the sports world fell into dissaray, and the threat of Covid was completely and utterly inescapable. My mindset changed immediately, but we were still a bit naive.
At the time, I had a trip planned for Korea in May, in that moment, I actually did think to myself would we be OK by then - if to show just the level of my naivete, early on my worry was about the Covid situation in Korea - remembering Busan to be the second real public outbreak after Wuhan. That trip in May begat September which begat this May which will then begat this September (and still potentially not even then will it be possible...). It is staggering to think what an impact the pandemic had - but dwelling on that astounding impact is for my final Pandemic-versarry piece. This is about the simple fact I went from flying 122 flights in 365 days to zero and what it taught me.
I should say, while traveling for work was obviously made moot, I easily could have traveled for personal travel, especially last Summer and early fall. For all the perceived risks, flying isn't that risky an activity - its a dice roll if the person next to you is infected but otherwise it's not the most unsafe activity to be sure. It wasn't some puritanical stance against flying that kept me grounded, but despite having the opportunity, the fact remains I haven't taken to the air.
What more than anything this past year on the ground has taught me was to not take flying for granted. I don't think I did all that often - still romanticizing the incredible fact that this technology, to transport people in bus-birds in the air from place to place at heretofore unimaginable speeds. But traveling for work Monday and Thursday week after week, dealing with American winter snow and summer thunderstorms, on small planes for 90-minute flights does do well to break down the shiny veneer of 'flying.' But no more, that first time I take a short flight at 7am to some random Midwest town for work, I'll undoubtedly tear up.
What more this past year highlighted was just how fortunate I've been - to have parents who loved to travel and take us on long flights from early ages. From having a job that allowed me to travel for work, but also travel for leisure. For having the luxury of taking vanity trips - using money I should have been paying towards NY rent but instead did for flights to Singapore becauase I wanted to fly on the longest flight in the world. I did some fairly ludicrous trips in the 24 months prior to my year on the ground - two trips to Mumbai for six days each, the aforementioned Singapore trip, the six day trip to Cape Town. I flown enough for many lifetimes, and so thankful I did before that option was taken away.
The year on the ground did allow me to get that romance back in flying. I remember feeling utterly heartbroken seeing Newark Airport so empty, so desolate, so bleak, when driving up the Turnpike past it back last Spring and Summer. Honestly, it was depressing. I walked through that airport about a hundred times in 2019-2020 - seeing it clinging to life was devastating.
I felt better as slowly but surely it got slightly busier - still nowhere near where it was in February 2020, but something resemble a humming operation. The only remaining step is for me to take a flight through it.
Flying has been such a huge part of my life, and it never was a larger presence than that past year. From January 1, 2019 through March 13, 2020, I took 147 flights. Those flights were across 38 different airports, on 15 different airlines and 25 different types of aircraft. It was a joy, looking back I'd rarely been happier (it helped the project, the one that drove a majority of some of those stats, was a good one). It got me to airline statuses I'd never had before, in time to use upgrades to get business class on flights to Mumbai and Cape Town. It got me closer to the George Clooney character in "Up in the Air" as I probably could ever hope to.
Flying will become a part of my life again I'm certain - if anything I'm almost going to go out of my way to break the streak by end of April. I got my first vaccine shot last week (kind of amazing to think it happened near the 1-year mark), the second upcoming on March 27th which should time me up to get full immunization by mid-April or so. I don't know where that first dip of my toe back into the flying pool will be, but I'm hoping to make it something special.
I can't wait for that first time walking down the jetbridge, that first time sitting in my seat. That first time I have to pretend to listen to the safety briefing. That first time hearing the engines fire as we head down the runway, and that first time feeling once again "holy God, we're floating in air." I've generally avoided flying in window seats, especially on longer flights, but whenever I do return to the air I will definitely take a window and stare out of it far longer than I've done on any flight in the last five years - soaking in the wonder of being in the air.
It's somewhat ironic that after that peak flying it went straight to zero in a matter of days. That last fateful week I flew four flights, from Newark to Raleigh, then back to Newark, then up to Toronto, than back to Newark. That's the life of a consultant - four flights in three days, none longer than 90 minutes, all in regional-jet planes. But that's the life I miss so much. Sure, I miss the long flights with meals and lie-flat seats and movies and the like, whisking off across continents, doing in hours what people seven generations back could only do in weeks. But no, what I ultimately miss is that gray-light walk through Terminal C TSA at 6am, that patient lining up as we await being called on board, and that hope that we can fall asleep quickly to get a few last minutes of shut-eye before the start of a work week.
This year on the ground taught me a bunch - aspects I spoke to in great detail in my A to Z, and will do in my final 'Year of Covid' retrospective, but it taught me to appreciate how fortunate my life in the air has been. It also made it more clear than ever that I should lean into that interest - to never feel shame to track my flights, rattle off my flying stats, and own the fact that my life was grounded for a year, but never again. As I hopefully return to the sky soon, I should remember how I feel right now, that any flight is a blessing, a miracle of modern invention, and never lose sight of the fact that any moment spent in the sky is pure magic.
