New York, June 16: A man who says he’s afraid to fly is spending the month of June living on a plane.
Mark Malkoff, 33, a comedian and filmmaker, boarded his first flight June 1 from LaGuardia in New York, where he lives, heading to Atlanta. He plans to stay on AirTran flights until June 30. The airline offers wireless Internet service, so Malkoff is posting updates about his trip on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and on his blog, http://www.MarkOnAirTran.com.
Entertaining videos on his blog show him playing a cramped game of Twister with other passengers in the aisle; his crazy dances when the plane is parked for the night, and a wacky experiment to see if the airplane bathroom will suck an entire roll of toilet paper down in one flush.
Malkoff, a former audience coordinator for “The Colbert Report,” said in an e-mail that “the hardest part is washing my hair in the airplane bathroom. I use baby wipes to clean myself. … The only time I leave the plane is once in a while to go on the tarmac to switch planes. I never go into to an airport. I’m trying to stay on the same plane for as much as possible.”
His itinerary ranges from five to a dozen flights a day, with destinations including Raleigh, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., Denver, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
His wife flies to meet him on weekends.
He also tries to exercise between flights when the plane is empty by jogging in the aisles and doing push-ups on the seats. When the plane is parked for the night, he sleeps onboard, alone.
As for his fear, “the flying has definitely gotten easier. The biggest thing that’s helped has been the pilots explaining the specifics I have a hard time with in detail such as turbulence.”
He invites others to contact him “to give me support and keep me occupied as I face my fear.”
Malkoff’s past projects have included “Mark Lives in IKEA,” documenting his weeklong stay in an IKEA store, and “171 Starbucks,” in which he visited 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan in less than 24 hours.
–Agencies