July 12, 2004
Mile-High Exercise Club

THERESA: Here's a way to while away the hours next time you take a vacation. Exercise on the plane! Song Airlines is offering (for an $8 fee) travelers equipment and a how-to guide to burning some calories while burning time en route. Aaargh. I don't think I'd want to try this, and I don't want to be elbowed by some sweaty person next to me as they flex and stretch. But it's an interesting development, dontcha think? It's probably better to shell out the money for a workout than pay for one of those cheesy in-flight meals so many airlines are offering now. Comments?

KIMBERLY: This is a little on the silly side. I don't want to exercise on an airplane nor do I want to sit next to someone who is exercising.

YVONNE: I'm all for keeping the circulation going, but can you imagine how irritating this would be if you are trying to relax and some obsessive-compulsive exerciser is huffing, puffing and flexing next to you while you are trying to read or relax? I can't see this concept taking off :)

LAURIE: I'm not sure how to feel about myself based on this airline's descriptions of its focus-group women (who are younger than me, so maybe that explains it!). Women are "comfortable with self-expression" yet so obsessively worried about -- oh, excuse me, so "in tune with" -- their spouses/children that a company feels if it markets to a woman, it gets the whole family. They think I like apple martinis and Kate Spade outfits? A biscotti sugar high with my cappuccino buzz? And that I'd like to spend my hour or 3 in the plane burning calories? OK, I guess this is all true, more or less. I just don't know how I feel about it. Makes me want to go home and take a nap.


Comments

The next generation will look back at air travel in our age as barbaric. You sit shoulder to shoulder, five or ten wide for six, eight, ten hours at a time, and are discouraged or prohibited from even standing at long periods of time.

More and more evidence of the reality of economy class syndrome suggests what common sense has told us for years: it's just plain unhealthy to sit still for the better part of a day.

When I first saw this headline, I thought, "Oh my God, they're going to let me stand up!" No such luck. What's worse is that I see this as an excuse the airline is going to have for not making conditions in planes more hospitable. Now it's going to be my fault if I have an embolism because I wasn't squeezing my rubber ball enough.

I believe that the fact will come to light that sitting in a little seat for as much as fifteen hours at a time is hazardous to your health. Allowing passengers the chance to stand up and walk around, which would seem to be pretty much the minimum meaningful definition of exercise, would involve a radical change in thinking, not to mention profit-robbing room aboard the planes.

Someday the economy class airline seat will exist only in a museum, and future generations will wonder how we could stand it.

Posted by: J on July 12, 2004 03:39 PM

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