In Flight

So, John Scalzi, one of my fave authors just took his wife to London for her birthday. Mega cool, right?

They flew first class and I am SO damn envious. Scalzi’s got the bucks for that now but he grew up poor. He TOTALLY knows, and has written incisively, about what that’s like.

Though he flies a mega-lot for biz, I get the impression from this Tweet that this is, mebbe, his first time outta Peasant Class. What a treat!

What’s it cost to fly first class from Dayton, Ohio to London? On American Airlines a round trip ticky will run ya $6,048. On British Air? $6.462.

How about from Boston? I’m ever so much closer to London, don'cha know.

British Air prices start at $3,768. On American it’s $3,908. Much better but still totally unaffordable. Hell, that’s more than three times the entire cost of one of my average ‘cross the pond holidays!

My jaw dropped clean outta ma tête when I saw that Swiss Air starts at $12,490 and Lufthansa at $12,502. The fuck you get for 12+ large?

• A 2017 Chevy Spark to take home with you?
• A Plugin House so’s you can save on hotel costs in Chelsea?
• Do they rent the posh resort island of Belize, Cayo Espanto, for me for the week after I get back?

On Virgin Atlantic, I can fly round trip, Boston/London, for around $350 (or less). Yes, that’s Serf Class. No, I won’t get the luxe meal (served on real china on a white table cloth!) or a bed but I’ll save three and a half to nine Gs.  That ain't piffling cabbage, mon ami.

IF the price was, say, merely double the cost of Bumpkin Class, I know that, somewhere along the way, I’d splurge. Just once or only when I fly to Berlin to visit my fab cousin.

BUT the cheapest of the the First Class fares is more than 11 times the cost of Peasant Class. The 
most expensive is 36 times the cost. The mind reels.

Do the airlines ever have trouble filling these astronomically priced seats? Are there that many radically rich folks for whom dropping 13K ain’t no thang?

Looking at this gives me a sad.

Meanwhile, First Class on Singapore Air gets you an actual “suite!” The charge for, say, a round trip ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong will run ya $14,258.64.

• OR I could take that dough and pay for Jen and I to go on a 13 day African photo safari.
• OR I could buy an acre of land in beautiful, WAY upstate rural New York AND, with an additional 13 Gs, put in one of them Plugin Houses.
• OR I could spend a posh week in the Moss Suite at the new mega chi-chi hotel/spa at Iceland’s Blue Lagoon.

Yes, it all sounds lovely but NO can do. Bills and shit. Ya know?