I am on Qantas QF002 from Singapore to Sydney. Just watched “The First Man”. A somewhat unsung film about the journey that Neil Armstrong took to the moon. 

One of the things that most struck me was how finely tuned the operation was. How little margin for error existed. The fuel in the lunar module was used down to the last 2%. There was hardly enough oxygen in the tanks, while the risk of just spinning out of control was constant. Would such things be tolerated today? Would that spacecraft even take off today?

Every part of that mission seemed to be a hazard, an opportunity for death to befall the crew. John F Kennedy at the time said:

We choose to go to the moon… do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills…

John F Kennedy

I think about today’s era. It’s easy to look at achievements as just another tick in a long line of ticks. Even in the last few days, we see other conquests, like that of Mount Everest now being reduced to a commodity. The photograph was taken by Nirmal Purja of the line of mountaineers waiting to ascend to the mountain’s summit. Although the climb still remains as hard as ever it was, we are desensitised to the notion of difficulty because difficult is trendy rather than life-changing. 

We now have larger margins of error, rather than the metaphorical wing and a prayer that used to be the case. Perhaps there would not be so many climbers if it was a bit harder, or if the uncertainty was higher. What makes that moon trip the most remarkable is not that we did it, but that we did it in those circumstances with the technology of the time.

It seemed strangely relevant to watch that film on an aircraft – itself an implausible looking thing. From the idea of flying thousands of feet above the surface of the earth – to the sound of the wind rushing past outside – to the fact that I just at my dinner in the sky. It would all have seemed like magic in the decades and centuries of the past.

Obviously flying in the sky is just one part of the story. There are processes and systems on the ground, just like Houston launch control in the days when NASA’s space program was more active. I really used to like Qantas. I would drive past Heathrow in the days of past and look at that iconic aircraft tail logo, the red kangaroo, and instantly imagine where it would be going. Alas, my first international flight on such an iconic airline has not been so great.

Check-in. Let’s think about that journey.

1. Scan your passport
2. Select passenger
3. Confirm number of bags
4. Get the luggage tags
5. Get the boarding pass, printed on a thin sheet of thermal paper that easily rips
6. Decrypt sticker system and fix luggage tags to your bags
7. Go to the luggage machine
8. Scan your boarding pass
9. Scan your passport again
10. Put bag on scale.
11. Get told to remove bag from scale and replace in a tray
12. Get told that the handles are sticking out, remove it and start again from 10.
13. Get told the luggage tag could not be read, reposition bag and try again.
14. Get told bag is wrong shape, replace it sideways.
15. Success! Next bag please.
16. Get told next bag is not on scale properly. Replace and start again.
17. Success! First bag disappears. Second bag moves up. 
18. Place 3rd bag.
19. Bag doesn’t fit. Replace and start again.
20. Bag is not straight. Remove tray and try again. Bag read. Overweight. Take docket and pay excess.
21. At this point, I know there’s stuff I could take out of the first bag, but I cannot do that because the bag has already disappeared.
22. Get given both remaining bags back. Go to customer service and pay a fee. Tell them you want to remove stuff from first bag to avoid excess but be advised it is too late.
23. Customer service agent waives excess because I was only 1kg over anyway. Completed.

Yep, that’s really the Qantas check-in process. It may be technological, and I’m sure that the managers and analysts who created such a process are very proud. I wonder if any have actually used it as a paying customer? With a family? I sense not, or if they have used it, they have some very rose-tinted spectacles and certainly did not think like customers. 

Then, once on the aeroplane, the challenge continued, at least for economy class. There aren’t enough toilets, and the staff did not seem pleased to be there

I look at this plane, emblazoned with “The Spirit of Australia” and wonder if that really is the Australia that we know and love. I dare say not. Qantas is not the airline I choose to fly.