The future has landed among us: buy tickets, driving on the airport or spend hours on a plane is not what it once was.

There was a time when air travel was literally leave the world a few hours. Not only because they lost all contact with the earth, but because one was entering a very different environment of earth reality: a relaxed and safe in the airports, aircraft size antediluvian, charming hostesses with cap and drivers epaulet, a warmth almost cloying and even space to acquire services without taxes or guilt.

Photography by chinaoffseason

The truth is that thousands of millions of passengers a year have become the magical act of moving a crowd of 10,000 feet in a pile of steel almost an everyday occurrence.

But there is still much larger changes to come. And these are just ten things you never thought to do before or during a flight, and that are imminent or even common.

1. Purchase a ticket at the supermarket

It is no longer essential to be a guru to find a reasonable fare to any destination that comes to mind. You can access the page for each airline and find out prices compare virtual agencies at the time and pay by credit card or print the ticket and pay it in any case of electronic payment, even in a supermarket. Who has not been in that situation can peer into the Carrefour de Paraguay 919 of the city of Buenos Aires, a half block from the office LAN, where row passengers are also utilized and along with a ticket to Miami will wear, For example, a yogurt and half a dozen eggs.

2. Check with the cell where is your plane, your luggage or your seat

When booking a ticket online, many companies allow tick a box and start receiving a text message or email of any changes in flight scheduling. The phone features are soon expanded to also report where the ship, where your luggage and make your check seat until the last moment before boarding, when released coveted places. According to a recent study by the Amadeus reservation center, «the emerging mobile technologies will revolutionize every stage of travel experience in the future.» The report, called The traveler always on, shows that 16% of 2978 respondents used his cell phone to purchase tickets, but the percentage is increasing in the younger (18%) and frequent travelers (33%). It also reveals that 40% would consult the state of your luggage and your flight if the airline installed this technology push (sent directly by the server), something that most are implemented.

3. Share a flight with «thousand»

There were no real privacy in a traditional flight, but 150 or 200 seemed a reasonable amount of travel companions. When we were getting the idea that we would maintain the 400 hours with passengers on a jumbo jet (Boeing 747), we face the Airbus 840 of 380, which in its extended version, with pure Economy cabin, can accommodate 1000 people. These volumes remind us closer to a subway or urban congestion than air travel, but there we are, all together, canned, and in the air.

4. Comfort

The airlines that boast of their service, starting with Asia, which had long European and followed. Among them was a silent competition on quality (cotton or silk ¿?), Comfort (buttons, zip or closed) and to the designer of the garment (Christian Lacroix for Air France, Singapore Givenchy, Peter Morrissey for Qantas). But from next month, the less pretentious American Airlines will be the first U.S. airline to include pajamas and luxurious amenities in First and Business classes.

5. Fly with a pilot

Women not only lead countries, but also piloting aircraft for decades, but was more commonly found in the cockpits of American Airlines or Lufthansa. In fact, there are only 450 in the world, according to the Society of Women Pilots (Society of Woman Airline Pilots). But for a couple of years is also possible to see in our latitudes, and that Aerolineas Argentinas, Austral, LAN, Pluna and Sun have several pilots and there are even services where the whole crew (pilot and copilot), and the crew cabinet are women.

6. Flight hours accumulated

In the movie Love nonstop George Clooney got the coveted 10 million miles flown and agreed to a titanium card frequent flyer after spending much of his life above a plane. The extraordinary benefits of such preferential category of customers are all a myth in the commercial aviation scene. Tom Stukas, for example, is a United passenger numbers, having arrived last July at 10 million miles, and even flights have been delayed to wait for shipment, as he admitted in a note issued to CNN.

But you no longer need to travel to Hawaii 80 times as Stuke, to access certain privileges. For two reasons: one, that is easier to earn miles for partnerships between companies allowed to accumulate hours flown with the airline. In addition, increasingly expanding the variety of types of purchases which are credited with miles.

Second, the airlines have fare and offer much of any civilian rights previously reserved only for elite fliers. Payment by, you can have entrance to the VIP lounge, a passing cab, embark on the first call, the seats with more legroom, and even choose preferentially window or aisle. Besides the usual supplementary food to accompany the standard, as was the wine or liquor, airlines are also beginning to have more menu-like business class or tourist cabin, only paying separately. From this month, for example, KLM offers menus to choice for their international flights from Amsterdam. For between 12 and 15 euros, you can choose from Japanese, Italian, Indonesian or vegetarian.

Photography by nurpax

7. Connecting from the air

At airports you can access expensive Wi-Fi networks (except, for example, in Kigali in Rwanda, which is free) and, little by little, the airlines are incorporating this feature onboard, a service that will have widespread in a period of three to five years, according to industry estimates. The rates climb from $ 5 an hour and a half, but still uneven level of access offered to already have it enabled in part of its fleet, Virgin, Delta, British Airways, Lufthansa, United, Air Canada and Qatar.

Also the use of cell phones in flight is something that tends to become more flexible as they move on interference studies verifiable equipment in command of the aircraft, as in Europe where power is allowed once the ship exceeded 3000 meters. The price will depend on the operator and, for now, is also skyrocketing.

8. The boarding

At the airport, a kind of ATM print your boarding pass and prompts on the screen passing through the reader mail your passport and visa, if necessary. Leave your luggage on a scale that automatically emits two self-adhesive paper with the weight and code to be pasted into the bag and your boarding pass. After the bump stops in the field of luggage and leave.

That is, the first human being who is in the process will be security personnel and immigration, which may have many qualities, but not sympathy.

Still not so in Ezeiza, but at other airports, which anticipates that soon disappear these winks and complimentary phrases exchanged with employees of the airline at check in while traveling descargábamos nerves («It is the first I travel by plane. «» Sure you do not have a seat later? «» What used to eat? «).

To entry to countries like the United States, is being facilitated with computers that read the passport and enable the passage if it is resident.

9. Entertainment from the seat

Just finished the plane off the process and authorizing the use of electronic devices, hundreds of passengers draw their devices with small screens in which they write, calculate, draw, watch movies, read books or listen to music as they would in the living room home.

Airlines also now offer the most popular computer games and begin to transmit satellite television, as in the case of Virgin, Continental, JetBlue and Qatar.

Since the only movie screen in front of each module in the cab until today, the term flight entertainment has included a wide range so that it will be difficult to find someone flying to tell the end of the movie if he fell asleep before it ended.

10. Calling the president of the airline by name (nike)

Richard Branson, Virgin’s charismatic president, chat, tweet and appears frequently on Facebook. Not surprising from someone who every so often, when you lose a bet, hostess dresses and serves the food service their planes. But even less irreverent managers have also had to go down to the plain and interact with passengers arriving at your door, virtual or not, most jurisdictions that the complaint itself. Six years ago it was news that the president of Continental had to pay a dinner to 270 members of the board Flyertalk, where an equal discussed changes to the company. Now the news is a program like KLM Surprise, which tracks the same airline on social networks inconvenience that passengers may have had on his travels, to anticipate with some solution in the time of boarding or arrive.

Photography by redjar

The opinions, good and bad, they turn naturally in places like Skytrax, as is done with the tourist services on Trip Advisor. In fact, Twitter has the majority of airlines has become a strong channel where instant information about changes in flight schedules, answer pressing questions and are derived from wider consultation.