Zen and the Art of Aircraft Maintenance, or the journey home
They say the world is getting smaller, but at the moment i wouldnt want to travel it. Don't get me wrong if you have the luxury of spending two weeks in the Carribean then complaining about the trials and tribulations of getting there and back is churlish. That said i'm about to be churlsih.
40 BLOODY HOURS IT TOOK TO GET BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! 40. If i hadnt have turned 41 while on holiday that would have been 1 hour for every year i'd been alive. I wouldnt mind but the island of Grenada is only 7 hours away by plane. 40 sodding heat sapping soul destroying hours.
The journey back started on Thursday morning. Arrived at the airport with plenty of time, i'm the guy who tuts a lot at the people who find it amusing to be the last person on the plane and think what a hoot when they delay 200 people so they can say £20.00 on a cartoon of fags that are going to kill them. I digress. We arrived at Port Saline International Airport at 10 am local time (3 uk time) on Thursday morning. My mood was not the best any way as i had to leave a great holiday and had failed to sleep the night before - Grenada great place, but lousy airconditioning.
The Excel (hence forth known as the bastards) desk was meant to open at 10.20. From 10.15 onwards several memebers of 'the bastards' staff popped their heads out of the doors to check to see what the queue was like. It is obvious that the 20 mile sweaty long queue wasn't quite long enough for them to bother becuase it wasnt until 11.30 that they came out to play. By the way there were no signs that they was where we were meant to queue we just had faith, and a lot of BO problems.
From then on passage through to the depature lounge was actually quite easy. This should have been a warning. Plane was due to leave at 12.55 local time. So we waited and purused all 3 shops in the depature lounge. 'Enjoyed' a sandwhich from a shop that had obviosuly purchased the old british rail stock of sandwhiches in the 1980's. And waited. Another sign, that i joked about at the time, was that the cabin crew (it was a swap over point) were playing 'eye spy'. A game only ever played in dire boredom situations or to appease small children.
Approaching 12.15 an announcment was made that the flight had been diverted to Tobago ( the next point of call - it goes London, Grenada, Tobago to London). A follow up announcment is promised in 10 mins. The cabin crew in conversation tell us that this is good becuase it means that we will fly straight to London. Ok I reset my bordom threshold back 2 hours - this my calculation of how long the turn around will take.
Mean while several things start happening that i am not aware of at the time. The cabin crew start moving to the 1st class lounge and the ground crew start ringing Hotels.
The 2 hours have now passed and the follow up announcment (the one promised for 10 mins) is made, it just repeats the first and promises a further anouncment in 45 mins. By now i'm getting irritated but still have enough carribean rum in me to take the edge off - this i am sure is the reason i am currently not rotting in a Grenadian jail for attempted murder.
The notice board is amended and our flight is now listed as leaving at 17.30 local time, hmmmm.
Another hour and another wander through the 3 shops, and guess what the stock hadnt changed in the preceding hours.
I eventually notice a gaggle of people around some one an so wander over. The person they are gathered around seems to know something. It seems that there is some problem with the plane - no really, good golly gosh - a little while later the same woman with a different gaggle ( i was gaggle watching by this point). She didnt so much say it but implied that the flight had been canceled. She was joined by a man who also seemed to know something. When i and another gentleman suggested that a general announcment should be made he said, in a way that demonstarted either great wisdom or a profound lack of customer care, "you will know everything eventually." Well thank you yoda. At that point given the choice between eternal wisdom and the knowledge as to if i was going to make my connecting flight i would have chosen the latter.
I eventually approched a memeber of the cabin crew and asked them to make a general announcment and what was the position if i failed to make my connecting flight. She was under the impression that an announcment had been made and she didnt have a clue about the connecting flights. So instead she went round and spoke to people in groups and gaggles.
Rant Time: Customer care 101, infact pre-101. If there is a situation keep the customer informed. If there are a lot of them (customers that is) gather them all together and tell them what the hell is going on. Then what the options are and what you are trying to do about it. Do not do it in dribs, drabs, groups and gaggles. One person in one group may ask a question that is relvant to others not in that group. All the customers feel informed and not feel that there is the posibility that they may be missing something. ROUMOURS WILL NOT START.
The roumours started; they were going to put us up in a hotel, they were not going to put us up in a hotel, the flight had be requested to land in tobago by immigration, there was a mechanical problem, it didnt have the proper documentation, Excel staff killed JFK.
3.30 First class and Premium Economy passangers were called to the checkout desk. Our names were read and we were asked to stand on one side. We were then told to go and collect our luggage and return any duty free - you will note that at this point no one had said,
4.00 we arrive at a very nice hotel to be meet by the manager who tells us more in five mins that Excel have done to this day. Accomidation, food and soft drinks are free and we can have one 3 min phone call to the uk. He will notify us as soon as he knows when the flight is to depart.
J & I unpack essentials, shower and try and catch up on some sleep - as i said above through no fault of Excel i hadnt sleep the night before. We also had to make a phone call to BA to try and rearrange the connecting flight from London to Manchester. So we eat, sleep and waoner arround the very nice hotel not knowing if we need to relax or gett up at 3-4 in the morning to fly out etc.
And the roumours keep coming. The strongst is that the flight lacked some paper work for some work done and needed an engineer to sign it off. He was in tobago and they were going to fly him to grenada. Then they coudnt so diverted the flight to Tobago. In the mean time a Virgin 747 landed and Grenada, apparently, can only handle one big plane at a time. It then materlised, in the world of roumours, that the flight had to return to London empty to be signed off and would then come back - but they couldnt say if it was tomorrow or the day after.
Approx 10:00 pm local time a note was slid under our door saying that the flight had been re booked for 1.45 pm local time so we needed to check out of the hotel by 11.00 am the following day.
So the following day we returned to the airport, still unable to re book the connecting flight. J sister had got us the number of BA from the net. But until we knew when it was due to land we couldnt book. Eventually we worked out that it was coming from tobago so was going directly to Gatwick (landing 03.00 am (london time) which meant we could get the 6.40 am London to Manchester flight.
Trying to do this over mobile phones proved impossible. At this point I remenbered a conversation J and I had had 2 nights before about N (my Best man) I had said that he was the kind of bloke you could call on if you were in trouble anywhere in the world and he would help, and vis versa (just after he moved to london he went out and got drunk and couldnt remember what bus he needed to get back home so knowing that i had grown up in london drunk logic had him ring me to find out what bus he needed - at 2.00 in the morning i struggled to explain to a man in the clutches of alcohol induced idiocy that i hadn't lived there for 20 years and had left when i was 13). Any way N came to the rescue and despite being at work he spent an hour trying to book us tickets - most flights were booked as there was a England vs Celebrity football match being held in Manchester on saturday and it is a bank holiday, only to be eventually told that you can't book third party tickets less than 3 days in advanced. So he eventually worked out that he could reserve us seats, and did.
I have never seen a crowd of people so eager to see a plane actually land at an airport before. It was as if until they saw it they would not belive it.
Once on the plane (which left on time suprisingly) it was then a long (16 hours) and arduos journey to London and I thought nothing else could go wrong although when they requested if there was a doctor on the plane half way across the atlantic i was taking private bets with my self that we were going to be diverted - we weren't. In a final twist depature from the plane was delayed as the police came aboard, obviously looking for some rascal. Then a plane to Manchester and then a train to Huddersfield and then a taxi to my front door - that taxi driver got one big tip.
So if you think this blog is long you should try a 40 hour journey.
40 BLOODY HOURS IT TOOK TO GET BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! 40. If i hadnt have turned 41 while on holiday that would have been 1 hour for every year i'd been alive. I wouldnt mind but the island of Grenada is only 7 hours away by plane. 40 sodding heat sapping soul destroying hours.
The journey back started on Thursday morning. Arrived at the airport with plenty of time, i'm the guy who tuts a lot at the people who find it amusing to be the last person on the plane and think what a hoot when they delay 200 people so they can say £20.00 on a cartoon of fags that are going to kill them. I digress. We arrived at Port Saline International Airport at 10 am local time (3 uk time) on Thursday morning. My mood was not the best any way as i had to leave a great holiday and had failed to sleep the night before - Grenada great place, but lousy airconditioning.
The Excel (hence forth known as the bastards) desk was meant to open at 10.20. From 10.15 onwards several memebers of 'the bastards' staff popped their heads out of the doors to check to see what the queue was like. It is obvious that the 20 mile sweaty long queue wasn't quite long enough for them to bother becuase it wasnt until 11.30 that they came out to play. By the way there were no signs that they was where we were meant to queue we just had faith, and a lot of BO problems.
From then on passage through to the depature lounge was actually quite easy. This should have been a warning. Plane was due to leave at 12.55 local time. So we waited and purused all 3 shops in the depature lounge. 'Enjoyed' a sandwhich from a shop that had obviosuly purchased the old british rail stock of sandwhiches in the 1980's. And waited. Another sign, that i joked about at the time, was that the cabin crew (it was a swap over point) were playing 'eye spy'. A game only ever played in dire boredom situations or to appease small children.
Approaching 12.15 an announcment was made that the flight had been diverted to Tobago ( the next point of call - it goes London, Grenada, Tobago to London). A follow up announcment is promised in 10 mins. The cabin crew in conversation tell us that this is good becuase it means that we will fly straight to London. Ok I reset my bordom threshold back 2 hours - this my calculation of how long the turn around will take.
Mean while several things start happening that i am not aware of at the time. The cabin crew start moving to the 1st class lounge and the ground crew start ringing Hotels.
The 2 hours have now passed and the follow up announcment (the one promised for 10 mins) is made, it just repeats the first and promises a further anouncment in 45 mins. By now i'm getting irritated but still have enough carribean rum in me to take the edge off - this i am sure is the reason i am currently not rotting in a Grenadian jail for attempted murder.
The notice board is amended and our flight is now listed as leaving at 17.30 local time, hmmmm.
Another hour and another wander through the 3 shops, and guess what the stock hadnt changed in the preceding hours.
I eventually notice a gaggle of people around some one an so wander over. The person they are gathered around seems to know something. It seems that there is some problem with the plane - no really, good golly gosh - a little while later the same woman with a different gaggle ( i was gaggle watching by this point). She didnt so much say it but implied that the flight had been canceled. She was joined by a man who also seemed to know something. When i and another gentleman suggested that a general announcment should be made he said, in a way that demonstarted either great wisdom or a profound lack of customer care, "you will know everything eventually." Well thank you yoda. At that point given the choice between eternal wisdom and the knowledge as to if i was going to make my connecting flight i would have chosen the latter.
I eventually approched a memeber of the cabin crew and asked them to make a general announcment and what was the position if i failed to make my connecting flight. She was under the impression that an announcment had been made and she didnt have a clue about the connecting flights. So instead she went round and spoke to people in groups and gaggles.
Rant Time: Customer care 101, infact pre-101. If there is a situation keep the customer informed. If there are a lot of them (customers that is) gather them all together and tell them what the hell is going on. Then what the options are and what you are trying to do about it. Do not do it in dribs, drabs, groups and gaggles. One person in one group may ask a question that is relvant to others not in that group. All the customers feel informed and not feel that there is the posibility that they may be missing something. ROUMOURS WILL NOT START.
The roumours started; they were going to put us up in a hotel, they were not going to put us up in a hotel, the flight had be requested to land in tobago by immigration, there was a mechanical problem, it didnt have the proper documentation, Excel staff killed JFK.
3.30 First class and Premium Economy passangers were called to the checkout desk. Our names were read and we were asked to stand on one side. We were then told to go and collect our luggage and return any duty free - you will note that at this point no one had said,
"we do apologise but due to problems we are trying to resolve your flight has been canceled, we will of course put you in a hotel until this is resolved. Here is how you contact me if i can asnwer any more question please feel free. If i can not i will endevour to find out the answer. Thank you."
4.00 we arrive at a very nice hotel to be meet by the manager who tells us more in five mins that Excel have done to this day. Accomidation, food and soft drinks are free and we can have one 3 min phone call to the uk. He will notify us as soon as he knows when the flight is to depart.
J & I unpack essentials, shower and try and catch up on some sleep - as i said above through no fault of Excel i hadnt sleep the night before. We also had to make a phone call to BA to try and rearrange the connecting flight from London to Manchester. So we eat, sleep and waoner arround the very nice hotel not knowing if we need to relax or gett up at 3-4 in the morning to fly out etc.
And the roumours keep coming. The strongst is that the flight lacked some paper work for some work done and needed an engineer to sign it off. He was in tobago and they were going to fly him to grenada. Then they coudnt so diverted the flight to Tobago. In the mean time a Virgin 747 landed and Grenada, apparently, can only handle one big plane at a time. It then materlised, in the world of roumours, that the flight had to return to London empty to be signed off and would then come back - but they couldnt say if it was tomorrow or the day after.
Approx 10:00 pm local time a note was slid under our door saying that the flight had been re booked for 1.45 pm local time so we needed to check out of the hotel by 11.00 am the following day.
So the following day we returned to the airport, still unable to re book the connecting flight. J sister had got us the number of BA from the net. But until we knew when it was due to land we couldnt book. Eventually we worked out that it was coming from tobago so was going directly to Gatwick (landing 03.00 am (london time) which meant we could get the 6.40 am London to Manchester flight.
Trying to do this over mobile phones proved impossible. At this point I remenbered a conversation J and I had had 2 nights before about N (my Best man) I had said that he was the kind of bloke you could call on if you were in trouble anywhere in the world and he would help, and vis versa (just after he moved to london he went out and got drunk and couldnt remember what bus he needed to get back home so knowing that i had grown up in london drunk logic had him ring me to find out what bus he needed - at 2.00 in the morning i struggled to explain to a man in the clutches of alcohol induced idiocy that i hadn't lived there for 20 years and had left when i was 13). Any way N came to the rescue and despite being at work he spent an hour trying to book us tickets - most flights were booked as there was a England vs Celebrity football match being held in Manchester on saturday and it is a bank holiday, only to be eventually told that you can't book third party tickets less than 3 days in advanced. So he eventually worked out that he could reserve us seats, and did.
I have never seen a crowd of people so eager to see a plane actually land at an airport before. It was as if until they saw it they would not belive it.
Once on the plane (which left on time suprisingly) it was then a long (16 hours) and arduos journey to London and I thought nothing else could go wrong although when they requested if there was a doctor on the plane half way across the atlantic i was taking private bets with my self that we were going to be diverted - we weren't. In a final twist depature from the plane was delayed as the police came aboard, obviously looking for some rascal. Then a plane to Manchester and then a train to Huddersfield and then a taxi to my front door - that taxi driver got one big tip.
So if you think this blog is long you should try a 40 hour journey.
posted by gerbil at 1:07 pm
2 Comments:
1.) You and i are almost the same age.
2.) Good thing reagan isnt still President or we may have invaded again to "rescue you."
1) When do you cross the great divide?
2) Too true, one time i could have done with some yankee imperialism
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