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When travelling with GA, do you tell people how you came ?

To the OP’s question: As a rule no, unless she’s really pretty.

Tököl LHTL

Traban Tarbach EDRM is a delight. Riesling on the Mosel.

Tököl LHTL

Generally I tend not to. I’m a bit shy too I’ll talk about it more in France than in the UK – I think because the aéroclub system has a higher degree of social acceptance.

When we went to Alderney a few years ago I told the bicycle hire lady we’d just flown in for the day and she did a double take. Later on I looked up the cost of commercial flights, and I now know why.

It’s occasionally awkward with friends of friends (‘you’re the one with the plane’), but I try to be informative and enthusiastic about GA. Usually saying ‘lunch in France’ is enough.

Anything work related is a definite no. The closest was with a potential supplier’s (slightly sleazy) salesman but he lost me at “Oh, I’ve done the plane thing. That was after the Porsche thing”.

Good idea with the receipts. A similar thing with $2 bills from Wikipedia:

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

One of the circumstances where it crops up is when you are checking out of a hotel and ask the receptionist for a taxi to the airport.

The response to this request is almost always the question “what time is your flight?”

To which it hard to prevent oneself answering “when I get there” or something similar.

EGLM & EGTN

I say something like, “well I’d like to be there by x o’clock “

EGCJ, United Kingdom

Jujupilote wrote:

They have an awesome little idea for promoting public acceptance of our flying habit, in that they give you a strip of stickers that say “we flew in to 3D2” and when you purchase things in the area, you stick them on your receipts. That way the local businesses KNOW that the airport is doing their personal economy some good. It is a really cool way to keep the public happy about aviation!

That sounds like a fabulous idea. I would do it. But I started to wonder how exactly that would work with our cashless, contactless way of life at least in my neck of the woods. I assume that is for for those cases where there’s a receipt and a carbon copy, and the business keeps one of them. That is quite rare here, and often I have to ask for it, or I won’t even get the POS receipt.

EHLE, Netherlands

I remember taking a taxi from Prague to Letňany Airport. The taxi driver asked where we were going. When we said Sweden he looked very perplexed.

He was like: Do airliners operate from grass fields? It felt somehow bad having to say that we are the pilots flying on our own, like if we were rubbing wealth in his face. Not that I have any wealth… I was saving for months for that flight.

ESME, ESMS

Funny that… I recall sitting in a taxi in Prague, going back to LKPR, and when the taxi driver found out I wasn’t flying commercial he wasn’t too happy. When he found out I was Czech too he asked if I would ever come back to live in CZ. I have no intention of doing that (England has been my home for 51 years) but said I might come back when I retire, and he got quite agitated and said that’s what all the bastards do So one has to sometimes manipulate peoples’ knowledge somewhat…

But as I said most private individuals are actually really curious. Most people think “little planes” just fly in circles around the airfield. Well, to use a great idiom, they are not wrong

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Last year, I was joining my family at a campsite in southern France. A day before my departure, I had to ask the reception lady for a taxi ride to the airport for the next day. Taxi rides in the French countryside are quite hard to get, so you have to arrange it in advance. “We don’t have an airport here!” was her answer. I just said, “Yes, you have one”. She replied with: “No sir, that is impossible, the nearest airports are in Marseille or Lyon”. After some further hints and negative responce, I showed her Google Maps with the Aubenas airfield. “I don’t know that place, but sir, no planes will be flying from there.” At this point, I had to explain the lady the whole situation. Her brain was totally confused. She did call for a taxi, but didn’t know what to think about me.

But in general, I agree with the statements made here. If you fly private, people are very curious about GA. But when it comes to business, it’s a difficult topic. My employer likes it a lot and supports me with the charter and landing fees, however, at customer side, I try to avoid questions like “how was your trip?”, “did you had any traffic jams?”, “the traffic was terrible today, right?” etc. I just once said the truth and the customer responded with: “Oh, now we know that we handled out too high prices”. I felt quite uncomfortable with it.

Last Edited by Frans at 27 Mar 12:52
Switzerland

Frans wrote:

at customer side, I try to avoid questions like “how was your trip?”, “did you had any traffic jams?”, “the traffic was terrible today, right?” etc. I just once said the truth and the customer responded with: “Oh, now we know that we handled out too high prices”. I felt quite uncomfortable with it.

To which one can answer “we find that avoiding those terrible time consuming traffic jams you just mentioned saves us money, and that makes us more competitive. We try to run our business competently, not based on emotion”

Last Edited by Silvaire at 27 Mar 14:35
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