The only time it's OK to talk on a plane

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This was published 8 years ago

The only time it's OK to talk on a plane

By Ben Groundwater
Updated
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You know what it's like. You sit down, tucked back in seat 67K, wedged in for the long haul right near the toilets, and the person next to you gives you the look.

You know the look. It means they're about to start talking. They're going to start talking, and they're going to expect you to talk back. Then they'll talk again, and you'll have to talk again. It's a 14-hour flight and you're going to have to make awkward conversation the entire journey.

So you do what any reasonable person would do: you panic. You smile and mumble something and then grab your headphones and plug them in and play the first movie you can find and pretend you're completely engrossed in it. And when that ends, when the credits roll, you find another movie. And when that ends you grab an eye mask and pretend to be asleep for the next 10 hours.

The bar in Emirates A380 business class.

The bar in Emirates A380 business class.

At least, admittedly, that's what I would probably do. I don't like talking on planes. I don't know what it is about it. I like meeting people in every other situation, but an aeroplane is this sacred space where I don't want to be disturbed with idle chit-chat.

I don't want to talk on a plane. I don't want to get to know anyone. I'm not unfriendly or grumpy – I just want to watch a few movies and get where I'm going and then get off with the least amount of pain and hassle possible.

That's always been the case, too. I've probably missed out on meeting hundreds of extremely interesting people that I've been randomly placed next to on a plane purely because I have this thing about not wanting to talk to them.

Recently, however, things have changed. There's an exception. I have discovered that there is one situation, and one situation only, in which it's OK to talk to people on planes. And predictably it takes place in the part of the jet that I'll probably never get the chance to hang out in again.

It's business class. More specifically, it's Emirates business class, on an A380. Because while people like me still don't want to be spoken to while they recline luxuriously in their giant seats with their big-screen TVs and their automatic partitions, they are quite happy to chat once they hit the big stand-up bar at the back.

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Yeah – those guys get a stand-up bar. A proper stand-up bar where all of the drinks are free. It's at the back of the bus, a large open space where passengers can stand up and mill about and chat to strangers at 35,000 feet while drinking Bloody Marys and whiskeys on the rocks.

See: Airline review: Emirates business class

I didn't pay to find out about this, of course. I got a bonus upgrade through work – which, I soon discovered, is how most of the other passengers ended up in that area as well. Because the great thing about the stand-up bar and this new willingness to talk on planes is that you get to meet amazing people from around the world.

On a flight a few weeks ago I met Christian, a guy from Liechtenstein who'd been in Indonesia selling steel manufacturing parts. I met Rosie, an Australian who was travelling to England to do accounting deals. I met Boris, a German who used to play in a West Berlin punk band that once toured with the Ramones, but who is now working in insurance.

These conversations were all conducted over gin and tonics at the back of the plane. Even the hosties-turned-bartenders had stories. There was one whose parents were Kashmiri but who hadn't been home in 20 years. Another told tales of aircrew needing armored escorts whenever they landed in Lagos in Nigeria.

You don't need movies when you have conversations like that. You barely even realise you're on a plane until the seatbelt sign goes on and you have to retire to your seat for a breather before you head back to the "pub".

If only all air travel was like that. You don't need headphones and eye masks to ward off awkward conversations there. But of course, you do need quite a lot of money – which means I'm back to pretending to be asleep for 10 hours.

Take a 360-degree tour of an Emirates A380 superjumbo below.

Do you like talking to people on planes? Or do you put your headphones in and pretend to be asleep?

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