Nowadays plane and plane tickets have become customary terms to be used, as both terms are interrelated. Planes might have a strong stretch back history, even stretching far, to the epics. The first plane pilot, on earth would have been Ravana the great Asura legend of the Hindu Epic Ramayana, who had a Pushpaka Vimana (a plane made of flowers), in which he kidnapped Seethalakshmi, wife of Rama, and brought her to Lanka, believed to be the present Srilanka. The reference is much before, Leonardo da vinci had the concept of helicopter and Wright brothers implemented the idea successfully. Even much later the idea of passenger planes and plane tickets has emerged.
The age-old barter system would have accounted for the buying of flight tickets, as money could only revive the system, which now has become global. The current recession can also pave the way to get the popularity for the system. But unfortunately there seems no revival in the buying habit and style which is also global, where above all, money matters. The revival would have led more people to buy air tickets, and travel across the world. There would have been a chance that the airlines might have propelled faster in business as for urgency, demand could always be higher. There is no room for hopelessness, as the system has become more sturdy and structured, irrespective of the existence on money for trading and business.
As world has grown to an exorbitantly developed stage, that today many CEO s and MD’s of conglomerates owe their own personal aircraft like Ravana, for whom, airline tickets are not a matter of concern at all. They belong to the Thailand privileges card strata, and we can’t make an average statistical data, considering them, who rarely depend on the airline tickets for their journey. For an average or middle class citizen, he has to compromise with his time, patience and money to get a plane ticket, with a number of airlines and a number of classes, bopping before him as options. For Ravana and the elite group, they have no choice than one, but it seems like, options confuse the middle class Indian to book cheap flight tickets.
Options have also proved to be boons as people are able to meet their urgency, with respect to their affordability, comfort and need. The online website of various travel service providers, are utmost user friendly and usually it takes less than 3 minutes to book a plane ticket. A recent study by a travel portal claimed that the women are slow by more than a minute in booking air tickets. According to the portal, women take ‘2 minutes 14 seconds to book plane tickets through internet while men take just 1 minute and 5 seconds. This is not to generate a gender bias but rather to convey the maximum time required to book a plane ticket is 2 minute and 14 seconds.
The rush for plane tickets during Christmas, Onam, Hajj pilgrimage and many other religiously oriented festivals and occasions world-wide, is soothing to the mind to know that above business and profit, human is a lover of God, and a lover of mankind and peace. Man still values his culture. The eagerness to meet his fellow beings at the earliest has now become possible, and there is every chance that it could be faster in the coming days, over viewing the advancement in science and technology. Renaissance, reformation, industrialization, globalization, might have gifted the plane and tickets, along with which it has once made man skeptic about religion also. The rush for plane tickets at the Cochin International Airport is still a calming sensation for my eyes and mind.