Rock Star!!
It was a dark and stormy...day. In Munich. Very windy and very rainy - the kind of windy that has been known to close certain American airports. But Munich was still operating, with a lot of delayed and some cancelled flights. I was coming back from a week out on the road, and was really wanting to get home. My flight (on Swiss airlines) was delayed, waiting for the inbound plane to arrive from Basel. As I sat in the terminal waiting for my flight, I noticed that there was no one else around me. Sometimes people would walk toward the waiting area for the flight, but alas they were just headed to the smoking area that was right beyond it. I started to worry that, since I was apparently the only passenger on the flight, that it might get cancelled. I went to the gate agent (yes, there was one sitting there for this Swiss flight) to inquire about the flight. She said I was currently the only one checked in, but that there might be more. Finally, a few minutes later, she said, “Here we go, Mrs Gibson” – meaning, the flight was ready to board and I was in fact the only boarder.
I was then taken via a large airport bus (the kind that take you from the building to the tarmac to board a smaller regional plane), all by myself. I got a really good seat. I was escorted by the flight attendant into the plane, and then told I could sit anywhere (get this: When I checked in for the flight, the counter agent said she’d ‘see’ if she could get me closer to the front, but ended up giving me seat 14 B, in a 15-row plane. Uh, yeah, hard to fit me in to that crowded flight, huh?). So I chose row three, aisle seat. The pilot then came out, shook my hand and introduced himself to me and we chatted for a couple of minutes. He explained that it would be a very turbulent takeoff and landing, with some smooth minutes in between (turned out, he was exactly right – which is what you like a pilot to be, really). The flight attendant perched on the armrest across the aisle from me to show me how to open and close my seat belt, as well as to show me all about the oxygen masks in the ceiling. She also kept patting my hand and explaining that turbulence isn’t dangerous, just bumpy – ‘like an auto on a bad road.’ Uh, thanks, I’ve never actually experienced turbulence before, so I appreciate the babying I got. She kept trying to ply me with beverages and chocolates as well – but I learned from my deep-sea fishing fiasco in Miami several years earlier: Food and especially beverages and bumpy water (/air) are not the best combination. So I declined, repeatedly. So we took off into the dark skies, and it was quite bumpy, but I’ve seen worse. It was a turbo-prop plane, and they’re always a little rougher anyhow, in my opinion. But then it did smooth out and I played a few rounds of solitaire on my Palm, then it started descending, bumped a lot, then landed in Basel merely 40 minutes after leaving Munich. I was met at the plane by another escort who walked me into the terminal. I had personal flight handlers door to door – it was great. My colleague had been booked on a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Basel (and I had considered changing to that flight), and his flight got cancelled and he was stuck in the airport for another few hours while I was getting the rock star treatment and was back in Basel already. Hah! Some good luck on one of my flights is a nice change!!
Funny thing happened – you know the little cloth things that are often velcroed to the head-rest area of your plane seat? They usually have an airline logo on them, and often they are only in biz or first class, but not always. Anyhow, about an hour after I got back to my office, a colleague was looking strangely at my right shoulder. I looked over and could see something white from the corner of my eye. The fabric head-rest protector had velcroed itself to my back in all the turbulence. A nice little white square of fabric, with a wee Swiss logo in the bottom right corner. It’s hanging on the wall of my office now.
Okay, for those of you keeping track, I started this post weeks ago, and then got overwhelmed with work and travel. So I will be trying to catch up now…
I was then taken via a large airport bus (the kind that take you from the building to the tarmac to board a smaller regional plane), all by myself. I got a really good seat. I was escorted by the flight attendant into the plane, and then told I could sit anywhere (get this: When I checked in for the flight, the counter agent said she’d ‘see’ if she could get me closer to the front, but ended up giving me seat 14 B, in a 15-row plane. Uh, yeah, hard to fit me in to that crowded flight, huh?). So I chose row three, aisle seat. The pilot then came out, shook my hand and introduced himself to me and we chatted for a couple of minutes. He explained that it would be a very turbulent takeoff and landing, with some smooth minutes in between (turned out, he was exactly right – which is what you like a pilot to be, really). The flight attendant perched on the armrest across the aisle from me to show me how to open and close my seat belt, as well as to show me all about the oxygen masks in the ceiling. She also kept patting my hand and explaining that turbulence isn’t dangerous, just bumpy – ‘like an auto on a bad road.’ Uh, thanks, I’ve never actually experienced turbulence before, so I appreciate the babying I got. She kept trying to ply me with beverages and chocolates as well – but I learned from my deep-sea fishing fiasco in Miami several years earlier: Food and especially beverages and bumpy water (/air) are not the best combination. So I declined, repeatedly. So we took off into the dark skies, and it was quite bumpy, but I’ve seen worse. It was a turbo-prop plane, and they’re always a little rougher anyhow, in my opinion. But then it did smooth out and I played a few rounds of solitaire on my Palm, then it started descending, bumped a lot, then landed in Basel merely 40 minutes after leaving Munich. I was met at the plane by another escort who walked me into the terminal. I had personal flight handlers door to door – it was great. My colleague had been booked on a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Basel (and I had considered changing to that flight), and his flight got cancelled and he was stuck in the airport for another few hours while I was getting the rock star treatment and was back in Basel already. Hah! Some good luck on one of my flights is a nice change!!
Funny thing happened – you know the little cloth things that are often velcroed to the head-rest area of your plane seat? They usually have an airline logo on them, and often they are only in biz or first class, but not always. Anyhow, about an hour after I got back to my office, a colleague was looking strangely at my right shoulder. I looked over and could see something white from the corner of my eye. The fabric head-rest protector had velcroed itself to my back in all the turbulence. A nice little white square of fabric, with a wee Swiss logo in the bottom right corner. It’s hanging on the wall of my office now.
Okay, for those of you keeping track, I started this post weeks ago, and then got overwhelmed with work and travel. So I will be trying to catch up now…
posted by Swizzies at 14:41
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