Flight: Jeddah
Date: 20th November
Punctuality in departure is of paramount importance in the civil aviation industry. Many airports have imposed penalties to airlines that miss their dedicated time slot of arrival. However with safety, security concerns, and natural weather conditions, it is not always possible to be on time. Sometimes, airlines have many connections, and if the previous flight gets delayed, then the ripple effect takes place.
Today on the other hand was going to be a short and sweet flight. Having had so much mental notes to put into action, it was mandatory to come back home on time. It is not always easy to run the daily errands; paying bills, going to the dentist, or even the laundry sometimes with an airhostess’s busy schedule. Most of the time we arrive when all the devils are starting to wake up so, it is never easy to plan things out.
Boarding went on smoothly, and the aircraft was swiftly making its way to the runway to take off. At the very last minute, the captain announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the aircraft has faced a technical difficulty and we will be proceeding back to the gate to fix it!”. There go my plans, I thought, and so did the rest. The engineers were trying to rectify the problem, and all of this took 2 hours. This is when the passengers start getting agitated.
Some crew members, during such situations, like to hide in the galley. Some may purposely lock themselves in a toilet and stay there for ages. And the ones who are left will be facing disgruntled customers.
Despite the captain’s clear announcements, and as if we are enjoying being delayed they would yell, “At what time are you leaving! I want to get out of this plane NOW!”. When the aircraft doors are closed or once boarded if a passenger wishes to leave the aircraft it becomes a major security issue. It does take a good half an hour to locate their baggage and offload them, and airport authorities would detain them until the plane has landed safely at the destination.
Therefore, unless you have a very good reason, other than being impatient, it is not advisable to voluntarily off load yourself. In order to make people at least a bit happy, we went in the cabins, offering drinks, and snacks, and to make matters worse a passenger’s entertainment system started giving trouble.
A kind colleague who had been talking and pacifying passengers, approached this gentlemen and started troubleshooting; but with no luck he went back to reset it through the main entertainment system computer. Impatiently the passenger stood up and yelled “You idiot, you broke it more, you broke my T.V, you broke the aircraft! And now I am stuck here for the past 3 hours!” and pulled him back from his collar attempting to punch him.
Natural reflexes coming into play, the crew member who was a martial arts black belt holder, restrained him in a couple of seconds. Finally the captain made a chirpy P.A “Ladies and gentlemen, as the engineers have rectified the technical problem we would be taking off in no time, and we apologise for the delay immensely and safety comes first, so we thank you for your patience!” which was followed by an irritated P.A “Thanks to a gentlemen who ran out of patience, I regret to inform you that we will be staying on ground for another 40 minutes or more in order to handover him to the authorities for being abusive and also to offload his luggage, we thank you for your patience and hope you won’t lose it!” and finally after 4 hours on ground, being delayed we took off, rather exhausted and disappointed.
Love,
Dany
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