Very well written questions. I think most of us are going to tell you we don't relate to bus drivers, beaded seats or a lot of distractions in the cockpit. Short flights don't allow much time for anything except monitoring the radios and ther continuous stream of chatter from all quadrants.
On longer international or trans-continental flights there is ample time to meditate on the mode of transport and I think most of us relate our trade more to that of sailors plying the seas. Lots of nautical terms and tradition survive on aircraft to this very day. Ships were the only form of transport to undertake the very long distance travel until the aircraft arrived. We shared the navigation, rank, nomenclature and many other things with these vessels. Many of the early long range aircraft were flying boats and looked to combine the two vehicles in roughly similar proportions.
We share very little with the bus.