Falling Asleep In Airplane Mode, A Real-Time Airplane Passenger Simulator
How would you spend a couple of leisurely hours in the cramped spaces of an airline passenger seat? Besides pursuing a very limited range of in-flight entertainment such as decades-old movies and card games, I would simply stare into emptiness or fiddle with my phone until I fall asleep from sheer monotony.
Which is exactly what I did in Airplane Mode, a flight simulator of sorts that doesn’t put you in the cockpit as a pilot, but as a passenger in a long-haul commercial flight across the Atlantic. Everything in this game happens in real time, and to its credit, it’s also meticulously and extremely realistic. You can take a two hour flight to Halifax, Canada, or be a tad more adventurous with a five hour ride to Reykjavík, Iceland. Regardless of what you choose, however, you’ll be sitting till your butt grows numb—but at least you’ll have a window seat—while the plane shambles to your destination. To better replicate the feeling of not having enough wriggle room for your legs, I pushed my computer chair further under my table.
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The flight begins with very little fanfare: a public address announcement by the pilot imploring you to enjoy your flight, and a reminder to watch through a meandering safety video—you know, all the rigmarole of being an airline passenger. Given that I haven’t been flying for a while due to the pandemic, there’s actually some small thrill in looking around and examining the back seat monitor, tray table, coat hook, and other airplane paraphernalia around the passenger seat. There is even an in-flight magazine you can look at, too—complete with fully fleshed-out articles and an introductory note by the airline CEO that no one ever
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