My job involves me taking A LOT of flights...luckily I enjoy flying and actually welcome the time to myself. I was in Turkey for the last couple of days visiting some factories. A flying visit (excuse the pun) arriving Wednesday evening and returning back to London yesterday.
Looking forward to getting back to London, my designer and I boarded at Istanbul Airport. The most irritating old American woman who was sat in front (incidentally with really bad hair) was already moaning about the fact she was sat in an upper class seat and couldn't recline. The UBER camp and rather stocky (fat) Air Steward informed her that due to being at an over-wing emergency exit, they couldn't recline as the doors had to be clear. "UN-ACCEPTABLE" she barked back. Well, I was in the same situation but apart from removing the wings and shifting them down 3 metres I could see little that could be done. He minced off and ignored her, I tried to do the same (minus the mincing).
We were just coming on to the runway when the pilot came on the speaker and explained that due to a young lady being taken ill we were having to return to the stand in order to get her assistance. Queue tutting, hissing and general moaning in the cabin. I must admit my own initial thought was that she's probably drunk or hung over, but at the end of the day, me getting arsey was not going to speed the situation up. The pilot wasn't going to think, "Crap, the passenger in seat 10D is looking rather annoyed, we'll head straight off, don't worry about closing the doors, there's no time..hold on everyone". We returned to the gate.
The girl was escorted off, the ultimate "walk of shame". I must admit I did visualise fellow passengers standing up, spitting at her and lobbing stones, no make that rocks, at her head as she walked past. Luckily they didn't. We sat at the gate for ages, I don't really know why we sat there so long. Perhaps we were waiting for her to visit her local GP, pop to the pharmacy and re-board? Anyway, she never came back.
The pilot came on again, apologising for the delay and that he would be travelling faster than usual to try and make up some lost time and that we would be leaving in about 5 minutes.
Of course I would be happy to travel faster to make up lost time, but part of me a) questioned why we wouldn't have been going at this faster speed had we left on time? Was the pilot planning on taking a leisurely fly back? and b) would I rather go the normal speed thus reducing risk of plummeting into ground into a ball of flames. It was best to leave it in his capable hands and to his expert opinion. An expert opinion that I started to doubt when promising on about 6 occasions that we would be leaving in 5 minutes, we didn't. Do I trust a pilot who can't count? Do I have any choice in the matter? No.
I remained calm and carried on reading my book. That was until cabin fever set and people started getting annoying, like REALLY annoying. I suddenly noticed the two 'mid-life crisis aged' I-pad using men, who weren't really doing anything on them, just showing them off. The American woman still moaning about her seat (just get out and walk), the rude Air Steward and his fat arse squeezing down the aisle, the dude behind me who kept putting his feet up against the back of my seat and the Australian woman talking to people (no make that everyone) about her concerns in catching her connecting flight at Heathrow.
Thankfully for all of the above, the seat-belt sign came on, silence resumed and we left again. An hour and a half later than scheduled. I didn't care by this point, I just wanted to whack my ipod in, read my book and zone out.
Now I'm back in London, I wonder what happened to that woman? Did we actually fly faster? And did the Australian ever catch that connecting flight? Like the age old question "why are there always phones in hotel toilets?" I guess we'll never know.
Next flight: New York, next week...at least there's a pretzel at the end of that flight, however horrendous it is.
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