Flying on the Ground

We continue from the previous post with more "Great Moments in Customer Service."

Several years ago, I made it a personal policy that a trip must be more than 1000 miles before I will consider flying. It's not that I am afraid of flying; it's just that I have found a 1000 mile trip in a tiny car with no air conditioning, screaming kids, bald tires and tornado warnings is just as pleasant as a 1000 mile flight. Usually we even drive the 1200 miles to visit my family, but I found some cheap airfare for the holidays, and we decided to fly instead.

The travel experience went pretty well even though we could only fly within 120 miles of our destination and had to drive the rest of the way. The final leg of the journey home involved a short flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to our small paradise here in the Great Republic. As we sat on the plane and neared our departure time, the captain came on the intercom and said, "Well folks, we're all set to go. We're just waiting to get fueled up. I keep calling for the fuel truck, but no one is answering the phone."

Although ensuring planes get the necessary fuel would be considered the primary part of the job of the fuel truck operator, I decided I would shrug off this inconvenience. Everyone has a bad day now and then. Plus, we're already on the plane for the last leg of the journey, not much else could go wrong.

The fuel truck eventually showed up, and we departed maybe twenty minutes late. After a short flight, we touched down an hour later at our home airport.

"Isn't it nice we live so close to the airport now?" St. Pauli Girl asked. "We'll probably be home in ten minutes."

The plane taxied from the runway then stopped just short of the gate area. The captain's voice came over the intercom, "Well folks, there's another plane currently at our gate. He should be on his way shortly. We'll have to wait here a few more minutes."

Let's review our time dictionary:

If you say:                               I hear:

Just a second                          1 to 5 seconds

In a moment                           5 to 30 seconds

In a minute                             30 to 90 seconds

In a couple of minutes            1.5 to 2.5 minutes

In a few minutes                    2.5 to 3.5 minutes

In five minutes                       4.5 to 5.5 minutes

15 minutes                            Oh no

A long time                           I'll never hear from you again

Even if you don't totally agree with my chart, I think we can all agree that "a few minutes" is a lot less than "30 minutes" which is how long we waited for that plane to move. And this is a small airport. There are only eight gates of which only five are actually used. How hard could it be to go to another gate?

Finally, the plane started moving to the gate area. You could hear the entire cabin sigh in relief. The plane maneuvered toward an empty gate 8. Then suddenly, the plane did a complete 180 degree turn back to where we came from then stopped again. The captain's voice came on again, "Well folks, we're not quite there yet, we just had to move out of the way for another plane that just landed."

I watched in awe as the other plane pulled up to an empty gate. I could see passengers standing up, ready to disembark. About five minutes later, our plane started moving again. This time I could see a crew set up to guide our plane to a gate. We finally managed to get off the plane 45 minutes after having landed.

I went to retrieve the car while St. Pauli Girl waited in baggage claim for our lone bag. I pulled up to the baggage claim area only to find a long line of cars ahead of me. They were all idle and no one seemed to be exiting the terminal. Another twenty minutes passed with no sign of action. I tried to call St. Pauli Girl but she didn't answer. I noticed a few people with baggage come out of the terminal. I pulled out of the line of cars and decided to double park by the door. When I got there I saw St. Pauli Girl with no luggage. She reported our luggage hadn't come off the plane yet.

Turned out that our wonderful airline had only two people working that night. They had to load up the plane that we had been waiting to clear the gate and handle our plane after we parked. At the same time. I'm pretty sure those flights had been on the schedule for a few months. I'm pretty sure a smart cookie supervisor could have scheduled enough people or called in someone on fear of losing his/her job or death.

We eventually got our bag and made it home two hours after having landed. (Did I mention we live five minutes from the airport?) But to top it all off, we paid $25 for the expert handling of our luggage! I'm pretty sure I could have offered anyone in the terminal $20 to go retrieve our bag from the plane, and we'd have gotten it within five minutes.

So I've decided to update my policy: 1500 miles or less, we drive.

Another June, Another Wedding

For the second year in a row, we got to travel to an out of town family wedding. This time we flew resulting in a shorter trip and not quite as much adventure:

Five minutes prior to our flight's departure from the gate, the captain came on the intercom:

“Well, I guess this isn't really bad news but we have an equipment problem, and we'll have to ask everyone to vacate the plane. Hopefully, we can get a replacement plane and get you on your way.”

I wondered what he considered bad news. I can imagine his announcement if the plane suddenly started going down in a flaming death spiral:

“Well folks, as you can see we're having some issues up here but it's not the worst news. Oh wait, here comes the worst part...”

 

The second morning, I left the hotel room to get our morning coffee from the lobby Starbucks. As I waited for the elevator, I heard a bell ringing and pounding from one of the elevator doors followed by, “Hello? Hello?”

Apparently a damsel was stuck on the elevator. This caused a dilemma: help her out or go get my coffee (and maybe I should take the stairs to do so)?

With no tools, I figured I probably couldn't get the door open. I also realized that if I said anything to her, she might get irrational expectations that I could actually help, so I just went downstairs. But I did tell the front desk about her before I got the coffee.

(Note: I always thought the proper spelling for “dilemma” was “dilemna”. Not true, apparently. )

Pretty much every wedding weekend I attend involves a golfing excursion. This time we got to play with my 14 year-old nephew who was playing for the second or third time ever. We taught him some very important lessons:

• Every golfer must learn how to drive the cart with his left foot while sitting on the passenger side, left hand on steering wheel and right hand holding a beer. (we allowed him to hold a soda instead)
• He must also master the art of leaning out of the moving cart to pluck a golf ball from the ground.
• If you hit an errant shot that hits a house, car, or person, do not approach! Immediately drive to the other side of the fairway, drop a new ball and pretend like nothing happened and/or blame it on someone else in the group.
• Never hit on the beer cart girl for the same reason you never hit on strippers or Hooters' waitresses.

The outdoor, riverside, wedding ceremony started at 6:00 p.m. Everyone had large sweat stains on their backs before the dancing even started. Probably the best part occurred during a quiet prayerful moment during the ceremony when someone from a passing boat yelled, “Don't do it!”

During the reception, some guests grumbled that the DJ wasn't playing enough 70's music (ie disco). A family member mentioned something along the lines of, “with the exception of REM, the 80's were the worst decade for music.”

Flabbergasted, I stammered, “What? I will put together a three hour symposium on how 80's music is superior to 70's music.” Just then, a Bon Jovi song came on. “Okay, that doesn't help my case, but...”

The only disappointing thing about the trip was that there was no Kung Fu Fighting at the reception (the song nor a real fight).