The Plane and the Village Well

(Baonghean) -After a long holiday, I asked Bim:

- Do you like having many days off and going far away?

- I like going out but Bim doesn't like going far anymore, because he has to go by plane...

I thought the girl was afraid of the sudden change in pressure during takeoff and landing, so she had an earache. Who would have thought her reason was both funny and worth thinking about:

“The other day, my family took a flight from Ho Chi Minh City. Oh my gosh, it was so crowded! Everyone was carrying loads of stuff, crowding the aisles of the plane. Bim and his parents were standing right next to their seats, but they had to wait forever to get in. Once they were seated, Bim immediately fastened his seat belt and told his parents to turn off their phones as the flight attendant instructed. But everyone around them was calling and texting. There was an uncle sitting in front of Bim who called his family, saying, “Dad, I’m hanging up now, the plane is about to take off,” about ten times, but he still wouldn’t hang up.

When the flight attendant reminded him again, he said, “I’m talking, one more minute,” and then calmly returned to his phone. The guy sitting next to Dad was the strange one. They clearly announced on the loudspeaker to straighten up the seat and fasten the seat belt, but he just sat there with his stomach sticking out, his feet resting on the seat of the person in front of him, looking very impolite. The whole flight he smelled strongly of alcohol, and every now and then he would get angry with the passengers around him, or punch the seat, or hold his head and mumble something that was hard to understand. The flight was only over an hour long, but Bim had a headache because everyone was talking so loudly. There was a large family sitting in the front row laughing and joking loudly, echoing all the way to the back of the plane. The flight attendants kept reminding him but to no avail, as if they were at home, not on a plane!”

I heard Bim tell the story of the “stormy flight” that lasted only… less than 2 hours, but I also felt a sweat. For a long time, there have been criticisms of the quality of aviation services, the press has reported on the “scandals” of aviation industry employees and the public has “enthusiastically” responded and joined in “throwing stones”. But the truth is that passengers using aviation services themselves still have many limitations and shortcomings, contributing to negatively affecting the quality of domestic aviation services.

An easily recognizable fact (but not everyone wants to admit it) is that there are many passengers who unintentionally or intentionally do not comply with the regulations of the aviation industry. The most common is bringing oversized luggage on the plane, luggage containing prohibited items or items that can cause inconvenience to other passengers. Uncivilized behavior and conduct on the plane is also a phenomenon that needs to be criticized, because it is a manifestation of ignorance, lack of character and lack of culture in public places. And the context here is even more specific, because it can affect the safety of yourself and those around you.

I think the aviation industry should tighten the control of passengers boarding the plane, to avoid allowing passengers who show signs of using alcohol or stimulants to board the flight, which not only affects other passengers but also threatens the health of the passenger in case of an incident while the plane is in the middle of its journey. In short, all the specific things above come down to one thing, which is public culture, community culture of our people. Only when we know how to respect the general rules when entering a specific environment and context can we truly step out of the well of primitiveness and backwardness to reach out to the distant skies.

Hai Trieu