The Flight Codex – Short Synopsis

The Flight Codex is in fact a rather large document. As many important life altering documents (think The Bible, the Harry Potter series or the Argos Catalogue), it goes into a lot of detail. It is also quite repetitive, to be completely honest, and not the best of reads.

In it, the 6 major European Airlines have laid out the ground rules of Modern Day Air Travel. It offers a set of detailed instructions for airplane staff, airport personnel and assisting job functions. More importantly, it contains a complete glossary of all processes and procedures on which Modern Day Air Travel is based.

The most important rule has been embossed as a watermark on the inside of the front and back cover. It reads:

Air Travel will be as uncomfortable as can possibly be achieved under a shroud of inconvenient luxury

The rule makes immediate sense to everyone who has ever taken a plane. It explains the following 'quirks' of air travel:

• Air Travel at first glance seems to offer considerable time savings compared to ground transport. However, upon arrival at the final destination you suddenly realize that you only saved 45 minutes at most. This includes travel to destinations that are hard to reach by ground transport, such as islands or Sweden.
  
  
• When booking, air travel seems to have decent pricing, very close to ground transport alternatives. Only when returning from your trip you find that no matter how cheap the flight was when you booked, you ended up spending exactly twice that amount.
  
  
• Your plane always leaves from the gate furthest away from the terminal building. All gates you pass while walking to your departure gate appear to be not in use. This one obviously depends on the availability of 'distant gates'. Try Heathrow or Schiphol for perfect examples.
  
  
• Your plane always arrives at the gate furthest away from the terminal building. Similar to the previous quirk, when walking towards baggage claim, you notice that all gates closer to baggage claim are all not in use.
  
  
• No matter how long you spend walking back to baggage claim, you always arrive at baggage claim at least 25 minutes before your suitcase does. In some major European airports this quirk has seen a slight upgrade in the past few years. In these airports, your suitcase will arrive exactly 75 seconds before your connecting train is leaving the platform.
  
  
• Once in every 16 trips (the airlines keep track of this), you will be leaving from one of the nearby gates. The joy this temporarily brings you will evaporate once you find out that this means that the plane is parked at the other side of the airport.
  
  
• The bus that will bring you to the plane in these cases is precisely big enough to not hold all passengers in one go. Furthermore the number of passengers on the bus will be calculated by using the simple formula: seats + hand grips +12.
  
  
• Food will be served on board of a plane. The amount of food will be exactly enough to disappoint greatly and will be just enough to not satisfy your nutritional intake needs for the remainder of the day.
  
  
• Warm Food will be served in very promising packaging. Food will carry names like 'Tenderloin on a bed of crispy stir fried vegetables and sautéed dill-potatoes'. Inevitably, you will find chicken or fish below the piping hot aluminium foil, accompanied by a mismatch of moist tasteless vegetables covered by micro-waved condense drops dripping down from the aluminium foil.
  
  
  
• The tray on which the food is served will be mathematically calculated to be precisely too small to hold its contents once opened. The ratio of tray and tray table is designed to exactly not hold any of the empty food packaging, unless you place your 'cold drink cup' inside your still empty 'warm drink cup'.
  
  
• Hot drinks are served only once you've opened all food packaging and your cold drink has been placed neatly inside the empty 'warm drink cup'
  
  
• Cold drinks are served. You can choose between Tomato Juice, Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Coke and water. People around you will choose Tomato Juice.
  
  
• Cold drinks are served in small plastic containers that are so flexible that they can only be filled half. If filled more than half, picking up the container means that you 'flex' the contents over its edge.
  
  
• Picking up your cold drink cup at the bottom end will cause it to crack.
  
  
• Check-in luggage weight restrictions follow the easy to remember formula of: Weight of suitcase + 2 boxer shorts + 2 pairs of socks + one toothbrush
  
  
• Carry-on luggage weight restrictions only apply when not checking in any luggage.
  
  
• The allowed size of carry-on luggage is exactly 2 centimeters larger in all directions than the size of overhead compartments and the space underneath the seat in front of you.
  
  
• The formula for calculating leg space is: (1/length of flight (hrs))*0,9 + (3*length of flight (hrs)). Giving you 51cm on a 2 hr flight, 39cm on a 3 hr flight etcetera.

In a later Annex to the codex, additional processes are described. These offer explanations for the supporting departments and job services indirectly linked to air travel. If you ever wondered what the reasons are behind certain 'anti-terror regulations', this annex will make good reading. Here's a very short overview:

• Metal detectors are programmed to beep at random intervals. On top of that, contrary to common belief, they do not detect metal. Instead, they detect sweat. High sweat levels are an indicator for stress in travellers. The more stress, the more likely it is that a traveller is late for a flight. Hence also the longer queues in summer season.
  
  
• Until recently, there was a monthly schedule for 'additional security regulations'. March was 'Please take of your belt' month. August used to be 'Please put your shoes through the x-ray machine' month. Recently, these rules were randomized after finding that travellers instinctively started to recognize the pattern and were taking off their belts/shoes while still queueing.
  
  
• The x-ray machine will calculate the amount of 'wearables' inside hand luggage, such as iPods, wallets, sun glasses, watches and coins. The 10 flights (per hour) with the highest total of 'wearable items' will be submitted to an additional full screening at the gate. This makes sure that you will have to remove all wearable items a second time.
  
  
• Duty free prices are calculated by multiplying the Recommended Retail Price by 103,5%
  
  
• The price for a simple ham and cheese sandwich will not be below €4,95
  
  
• The price for a small bottle of water will not be below €2,95
  
  
• The paper towel dispenser in toilets will be so tightly filled that you will not be able to take out a paper towel without shredding it.
  
  
• Smoking areas will be located between the non-smoking zones and the exit at all times.
  
  
• And, very important in this era of laptops and mobile phones: The maximum allowed amount of power sockets in any airport is 3. The minimum distance between a power socket and a chair or bench is 3,60 meters.