You see, the plane had to land in Birmingham! No, not that large city in England but that little one in the middle of the USA!
We were in Houston waiting to board the 1535pm to Charlotte but the inbound plane had a medical emergency, take all the time you want we can wait for the plane to arrive. I would be the last person in the world to think bad about situations like that! But it was what happened afterwards that had my fellow passengers and I seeing red. The plane had to land in Birmingham (Alabama did I hear somebody say?) and so us waiting passengers duly obliged the sole announcement and grabbed ourselves the third Big Mac of the afternoon, overweight helpings of sickly looking chocolate covered raisins or joined the long queue to complain volubly to some poor and very lost check-in girl who obviously knew less than we did about delayed flights.
I decided to participate in one of my lifelong hobbies - that of trying to find a banana, apple or orange within the departure lounge! I failed yet again! I’ve also tried to find a bowl of cornflakes, a sandwich not wrapped in plastic and a million pounds but I have failed in all my quests! Although I did come closest to the latter when I once found a five pound note under my foot!
Anyway, not to be sidetracked from the story, there we were at 1745pm, a depleted bunch of sorry travellers watching jealously as others managed to switch flights when our plane landed to disgorge the incoming passengers. They could all have been the medical emergency, two-seater bums waddling past, a series of wheelchairs, a man who looked as if he had been chewing his feet the whole flight and a series of dolled-up ladies who looked as if the all-over body waxing the night before had removed skin rather than hairs! Not that this has anything to do with my story – just an observation folks.
Wow, we would have cheered when the last passenger rolled off the plane but stiff upper-lipped business people and armour-plated made up ladies who might have just finished another session of Botox before checking-in don’t cheer. Anyway, within short order (another hour as the pilot complained of jet lag) we were all on-board and ready to hit the skies like a rocket to the moon.
You wouldn’t believe it though! Even if I told you, but I will! There we were, all on-board, strapped in and elbow jostling and well, there we were all strapped in and elbow jostling ......... you see things happened in Birmingham that should simply not have happened. Sadly they did occur, much to our chagrin. The plane landed in Birmingham and was measured overweight! Of course that’s nobody’s fault, I mean the plane had to land even if it was an overfed pig ready for the chopper (knife chop not helicopter) but they went and used up all the log sheets leaving none for Houston!
You find that strange? Well so did we, to the extent that it was a good ten minutes before the first passenger managed to get up to spearhead the complaining queue at the check-in desk.
Planes have log sheets! Logs have to be kept of every action that a plane goes through! And by and by the log sheets get filled. Unexpectedly this flight had to use up the remaining log sheets to get into Birmingham and for some reason the plane, the pilot, the airport, the ...... did not have any spare sheets/books nearby.
I didn’t know it (but now I do) that it is against the FAA rules to leave an airport without a blank log sheet on-board.
It was quite awhile before another US flight came in (seemingly log sheets from other companies (like Continental or American Airlines) cannot be used and the only available log sheets were those on the next inbound US flight. We left the ground at 2115hrs, having spent three hours on a medical emergency and a further three hours on a weary log sheet treasure hunt!
And soon we were on the way – well, not quite! A very large black lady who perhaps was occupying three seats not two decided that she didn’t want to fly after-all! No disrespect to the poor lass, I guess six hours just wasn’t enough time to come to that conclusion! It seemed she needed six hours and one minute! For the whole three hours that we had sat on that plane chewing our nails and waiting for some stewardess to grumpily pass by she had been on her phone. It was a bit like listening to CNN as she gave dramatic updates and highlights to some poor recipient every ten minutes in a high-pitched squeaky voice that would have had any self respecting elephant running for the trees. Anyway, just as the stewardess was getting into her spiel about where to put luggage this large lady burst into action; ouch, that must have hurt, she had forgotten to undo her seatbelt. Anyway, she surged forward to the front of the plane and “demanded to get off”! Another fifteen minutes lost as the pilot ordered her release and corrected his calculations and fuel consumption due to the sudden weight adjustment.
We eventually got off the ground, minus a much needed cheer, and were on our way to Charlotte – a journey of 1hr 50 minutes. The man in front of me politely asked the stewardess if the plane was going to continue on its scheduled path to Newark, a straightforward question that any traveller would like to know but the stewardess simply replied “I don’t know; I’m getting off in Charlotte”. Well, that man could take it but I couldn’t. I opened my big mouth and said “he didn’t ask if YOU were going to Newark, he asked if the plane was going to Newark”.
Well, didn’t I open up the floodgates! She got really uppity and started to shout, she looked at the man in front of me and said “did you go to the front desk to ask”. He replied in the negative and when she gave me the Spanish inquisition I just looked at her and said “whether I asked is not the point, I am asking you”. She went all red and told me it was my fault – I wasn’t going to Newark but then why should she know that! Silly woman! She sniffed and left! Ten minutes later I heard her berating another poor passenger down the plane! It seems that American men should not stand up to snotty and ratty air stewardesses! One guy next to me said “she will be dishing out detention next” and I could well believe it. Wow, and there was me thinking American business was all about customer service – “how you doing”, I think not!
I have heard it rumoured that US Airways are nicknamed Useless Airways! I can see why now.
As a ‘thank you for your patience’ they allowed us to have a free glass of water but still we had to pay an extortionate price for a beer! They also offered to help us with anything else we may need so I asked for a banana!
They don’t serve fruit on US Airways domestic flights either! Has the Federal Aviation Authority not heard of scurvy?
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