"Ladies and gentleman the plane has just fallen apart"
I recently flew to California for a week, generally when I fly to
California I do it on Jet Blue but tickets were almost $800, and I had mileage
on American so that’s what I flew.
As we prepared to leave the terminal I
thought to myself that although the seats were small, I’m close to 6 foot, and
the video screens on the ceiling were dying, at least the flight was on time
and the stewardesses were polite, friendly and helpful. I was seated in the
window seat next to an old couple who seemed to be in their mid 80s, I like to
talk on the plane as it helps to pass the time but when I tried to strike up
conversation with my geriatric neighbors they got this really scared look in their
eyes and gave polite, curt answers their eyes darting around as if looking for
escape. Now people who know me know that I am very friendly and easy going,
intimidating is not usually something I list on my resume but what you gonna
do?
We begin to taxi out of the terminal when
our captain comes on the intercom “ladies and gentleman, this is Captain
McEnroe speaking I’ll be your captain for this flight, we’re gonna be flying
via… over states such as…,” at which point his voice starts to sound like Jerry
Seinfeld in my head – “I’m gonna eat my peanuts now, not all of them because
the bag is so big…” (For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to I
recommend you check out Seinfeld’s stand-up routine it’s very funny.)
As the captain is finishing his standard
speech we hear him say “hey one of our transponders just stopped working”, at
which point a stewardess runs to the cockpit to tell him that we all heard
that! So he comes back on to say, “ladies and gentlemen it’s nothing to be
concerned with, the transponder is the device that communicates with the towers
on the ground and every plane has a backup transponder, so we’re in good
shape.” Ten minutes later however, he’s back on the intercom telling us that
“the second transponder just blew, so we need to return to the terminal to get
it fixed/ replaced, but it should only be about 15 minutes.”
Well naturally no one is allowed to leave
the plane and we all watch as the mechanic comes and leaves followed by the
captain telling us that “the transponders are fried” and “they are having
trouble locating a replacement unit”, but “be patient it shouldn’t be too
long”, at this point I pushed the call button to get a stewardess’ attention
and asked her if it would be possible to get the entertainment started to pass
the time, but I was told that it’s against regulations, which is a bunch of BS
as Jet Blue has the TV going as soon as you step onto the plane.
After a long period of time our favorite
captain comes back on to tell us all that “the transponder is in and working
fine” but we need to wait for the “gas he ordered to arrive.”
At this point everyone says something to
effect of WTF! He was about to take off without gas?! I turned to the old
couple next to me and say, “but he has some good news, he just saved a bunch of
money by switching to Geico,” which actually made them laugh followed by the
darting eyes and nervous smiles.
We finally took off at 9:15 PM (the flight
was scheduled to depart at 5:00 PM) with me saying T’filot Haderech (prayer for
safe travel) with the most concentration I have ever had in my life, and once
we reached the cruising altitude the stewardesses came by to sell us headsets
for the movie and entertainment portion of the flight, I couldn’t believe that
after keeping us on the ground for over 4 hours they were gonna charge us for
freaking headsets! I asked what movie was playing and then declined to pay for “rumor
has it” starring Jennifer Anniston, letting it be known that I would rather saw
my own arm off than watch that crap…
Anyways… after an otherwise uneventful
flight we finally land in LAX and are forced to taxi for half an hour because
no terminals were available, I finally got off of the death trap I had
entrusted my life to at three thousand feet in the air.
To make a long story short, the baggage
compartment on the plane was jammed so we couldn’t get our luggage; mind you
they only said this after waiting 45 minutes.
At this point I thanked G-D that the plane
made the flight and went home 5 hours after I was supposed to get there….
NEVER AGAIN WILL I FLY AMERICAN and thanks
to Renegade I won’t be flying southwest either.
posted by Eli Sp. at 8:14 AM
5 Comments:
no wonder you sounded so "testy" when i spoke to you at 2am when you were waiting for your luggage :)
I think we're running out of airlines to fly...
oh, and be happy they realized before you took off that they needed gas.
One word. Language!
u sound like that thing on chasidishe shaigetz (the blogger addiction thing) i didn't know this til i signed on here!!!
so you think blown transponders are bad?
try "ladies and gentelmen we are having minor troubles with the avionics, please be patient and we'll have it up and running shortly". my first reaction was how can you posibly have MINOR avionic troubles? now for all you who dont know what avionics are, here is the wikipedia version:
Avionics
The onboard electronics used for piloting an aircraft are called avionics (aviation electronics). Avionics include communications and navigation systems, autopilots, and electronic flight management systems (FMS).
in other words its the computer that makes the plane fly!
This was my first (and last) time flying southwest, so after i purchaised my ticket while speaking to someone who has used southwest in the past, i asked him how the airline is. i could not for the life of me understand when he said "oh southwest, its a bootleg airline", after flying i could not have put it better.
i wont try to write my full experience (too many buterflies) or i might have to start my own blog (again, too many buterflies for that). but i did learn a few things from this,
1 it would have helped pass the time had they let us know how long it will take (even if they are off by four and a half hours).
2 there is a big diference between "almost 6 feet" and 6'2"
3 if you ever fly southwest, its worth waiting in line for 2 hours to make sure you get a good seat...oh who am i kiding, just come ten minutes before takeoff and hope that the flight attendant is standing in the row behind the exit where the window seat does not have a seat in front of it. but that was the first half of this trip, not for now.
IT;s not worth flying southwest anymore. You'll just have to turn around and go back to where you came from....
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