By Micah Engber
Recently there has been much discussion about windowless passenger aircraft becoming the wave of the future. Based on the direction society is now moving I’m sure it’ll become a reality at some point. I also suspect that at some time we’ll see windows becoming either luxuries for the rich, or old technology left for the poor. Think about it, we already have windowless offices. Even in many offices that still have windows, those windows are left for the upper class highly paid top executives. The rest of us schlubs work in windowless cubicles and never see outside during a working day. Unless we’re let out for recess.
The kernel of this story was originally written in May of 2013 and many of you may have heard it before, but it has been made relevant again by the thought of windowless travel, and how, at least as I see it, most people won’t even notice. Here’s why.
I was ready to fly Jetblue Flight 607 but it was over an hour late departing Portland, Maine. I wasn’t worried though, I’d already changed my connecting flight in JFK. All was well and I’d just end up in Fort Lauderdale instead of West Palm Beach, really not that big of a deal.
The Embraer E190 was far from full with over 30 unfilled seats. In fact I changed my place from 16A, what was called an “Even More Legroom” seat, to 25A the last row of the aircraft that was completely empty. You see that allegedly premium seat was positioned between windows. How could they sell a premium seat for more money when there wasn’t even a window in that row? How little did I know?
We took off to the west on Runway 29 from PWM and started to bank south at about 1,000 feet. I had this whole row, both sides of it to myself, and there was no one around me. It was the back of the plane, the ghetto in passenger aircraft, but I guess I can be pretty ghetto if I have to, part of my heritage I suppose. My people were the original ghetto dwellers. [Read more…] about Windowless Airplanes? Not for Me