The Flight to Nowhere

Cranky Media Guy forwarded me this fascinating article about a new concept in travel. You pay your money, get on a plane, and then go nowhere. You just pretend that you're going somewhere. Meanwhile a stewardess serves you drinks and the "pilot" makes announcements such as "We will soon be passing through a zone of turbulence," and "We are about to begin our descent into Delhi."

This concept is the idea of Indian entrepreneur Bahadur Chand Gupta, and it's proving quite popular. His customers are people who have never flown on a plane before, because they're too poor to afford it, but they're curious to experience what it might be like. I suppose it's no different than the simulators you can find at amusement parks here in America.

Exploration/Travel

Posted on Wed Oct 03, 2007


Comments

Seems silly, but untill 90% of us can experiance 'vitural reality' on a hig def' system. This will have too do.

But on another note, this may help people who are afraid of flyiny, get over thier troubles.
Posted by DJ_Canada  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  12:51 AM
I was thinking the very same think DJ. I think this would be a good way for those with a fear of flying to confront it.
Posted by Nettie  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  05:20 AM
Or a fear of flyiny, anyway. 😊
Posted by outeast  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  06:17 AM
A brilliant idea.

I wonder, though, how far do they go with this simulation?

Do they simulate turbulence by shaking the plane? The least they could do would be to have somebody come buy and throw passengers' drinks in their faces to simulate what it's like when the plane hits a nasty patch of turbulence and you don't have time to steady your beverage.
Posted by Noel  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  08:56 AM
Reminds me of that episiod of the simpsons where they are in that plane resturant....
Posted by DJ_Canada  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  11:08 AM
Is there a "we just lost all engines and we have to ditch this baby" part of the simulation as well???
Posted by Christopher  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  11:55 AM
But they still haven't experienced true air travel unless they've had to wait in long lineups at customs (and dealt with their idiotic officials), have had their luggage lost, sat through a long layover in quarantine in a strange airport, traveled in economy class for a 13 hour flight, used a 747 bathroom near the end of that 13 hour flight...

If they did all that those people may realize they haven't missed much.
Posted by Captain Al  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  11:56 AM
I was thinking, that with the state of air travel now, every passenger sort of experiences this while waiting on the tarmac six to eight hours except there is no service or interesting talk from what I've heard.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Thu Oct 04, 2007  at  09:37 PM
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