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13 Hours in Steerage
Jun. 4th, 2025 01:30 pmItaly Travelog #29½
Somewhere near Greenland - Saturday, 31 May 2025, ??pm
We're aboard a flight on Level airlines from Barcelona to San Francisco. Have you never heard of Level before? Yeah, neither had we until a few weeks ago. When we booked these tickets 7-8 weeks ago Level was a subgroup of Iberia Air. Since then they've started flying on their own license. Apparently they're yet-another low-cost European carrier.
What does Level being a low-cost European carrier mean? It means practically everything is an extra charge. You want to pick seats before T-24 check-in time? That costs. (We paid $110 to select half-decent seats 8 weeks ago.) You want a cup of soda? That costs €3. Even a bottle of water costs. That's €2. Somehow we booked on tickets that include basic food and drink— but some of those around us are having to swipe credit cards just to get a shitty airline sandwich.
But, hey, by ponying up an extra $110 several weeks ago Hawk and I at least made sure we have seats together, aisle-window (on an Airbus 330 the seat config is 2-4-2), instead of two scattered middles like on the way out here. OTOH, they are still tight seats, and it's a long flight— scheduled at 13 hours!
It's interesting that our flight path takes us over the tip of Greenland. That's where I think we are right now, anyway. This aircraft's entertainment options don't include a real-time flight map. In fact the entertainment options pretty much suck. And headphones cost €2. And there's no personal device based entertainment. For an airline that just got its license a few weeks ago, their tech is surprisingly 10 years old.
The impact of this old tech is that this is turning into a long flight. There's no worthwhile TV/movies to watch, there's no internet. And it's too early to sleep. We're just 5.5 hours into this flight, less than halfway there, and already I'm ready for it to be over.
Somewhere near Greenland - Saturday, 31 May 2025, ??pm
We're aboard a flight on Level airlines from Barcelona to San Francisco. Have you never heard of Level before? Yeah, neither had we until a few weeks ago. When we booked these tickets 7-8 weeks ago Level was a subgroup of Iberia Air. Since then they've started flying on their own license. Apparently they're yet-another low-cost European carrier.
What does Level being a low-cost European carrier mean? It means practically everything is an extra charge. You want to pick seats before T-24 check-in time? That costs. (We paid $110 to select half-decent seats 8 weeks ago.) You want a cup of soda? That costs €3. Even a bottle of water costs. That's €2. Somehow we booked on tickets that include basic food and drink— but some of those around us are having to swipe credit cards just to get a shitty airline sandwich.
But, hey, by ponying up an extra $110 several weeks ago Hawk and I at least made sure we have seats together, aisle-window (on an Airbus 330 the seat config is 2-4-2), instead of two scattered middles like on the way out here. OTOH, they are still tight seats, and it's a long flight— scheduled at 13 hours!
It's interesting that our flight path takes us over the tip of Greenland. That's where I think we are right now, anyway. This aircraft's entertainment options don't include a real-time flight map. In fact the entertainment options pretty much suck. And headphones cost €2. And there's no personal device based entertainment. For an airline that just got its license a few weeks ago, their tech is surprisingly 10 years old.
The impact of this old tech is that this is turning into a long flight. There's no worthwhile TV/movies to watch, there's no internet. And it's too early to sleep. We're just 5.5 hours into this flight, less than halfway there, and already I'm ready for it to be over.
