Travel, especially flying, can be pretty frustrating at times. So much so that it doesn’t take much to push you over the edge and your alter ego gets to the see the light of day.
I’ve been getting my fair share, more than my fair share of frustration lately, perhaps due to a lot of travel, though something seems to be going wrong on the majority of trips of late.
It all began on the last day of May, flying back from London. We’d been going five or six hours – it’s hard to tell without a watch and always seems less than what you think it should be – when I noticed my ears were popping – even on a good day that’s far too early to be getting ready to land.
Sure enough, it was too good to be true. My ears popped as we had dropped to 23,000 feet rather than the usual 35,000+. We were also it seems headed for Detroit according to the display – not where I expected to be…
After a bit the captain came on and explained the cockpit windshield had suffered a failure – one of the layers (windows on a plane are made up of three sheets) was ‘bubbling’ – not good. So we were flying lower as a precaution, but that meant burning more fuel and that meant… Detroit.
They actually handled it pretty well – we waited for a bit a Detroit and then they shuffled us off and onto another plane – guarded by security and terminal staff since we technically still had non ‘landed’ in the USA. Amusingly this also meant we were supposed to not use cellphones, something most people seemed to ignore.
About three hours late, we finally landed in Minneapolis – too late for most to make their connecting flights (and fuming since they weren’t let off at Detroit). Luckily for me my connecting flight still hadn’t departed…
So what could beat a windshield failure? How about a Volcano. This one:
Thanks to Sarychev Peek in rural Russia, well north of Japan, our flight had to divert to Honolulu. The flight path from Seattle to Tokyo is normally pretty northerly – up the coast of Alaska and then across the Pacific before heading south to Japan.
The volcano meant the northern route was off limits – not sure it was the ash itself, but the side effects – storms and unstable weather patterns. So we headed way south to refuel on Hawaii before heading north again. One little known fact about Hawaii: you can’t dump trash that didn’t originate there.
The cleaners came onto the plane (and of course we weren’t let off) but then all the trash bags had to be re-stowed somewhere on the plane to take somewhere else….
Finally we made it to Tokyo, but my connecting flight was long gone. This was where the fun began. Everyone we spoke to was clueless about what was going on. We didn’t know what was happening to our luggage, where we were staying or when we’d be flying out.
Eventually we were given hotel vouchers but getting to the hotel (5 minutes away) also proved a challenge – I gave up waiting for the bus and tried to get a taxi only to be told ‘10 minutes’. As I stood in disbelief, looking at a row of taxis waiting to get passengers, or so I thought, I trudged back to the bus.
Eventually we got to the hotel, still no one knowing what was going on… I guess it used to be a nice place.
The next day I rose early and headed back to the airport. I’d been rebooked with JAL which was in a different terminal from the one I’m most used to. I should have remembered that Japanese efficiency works both ways. I got there about 6:40am – lines were starting to form around the check in desks.
Over time, the staff themselves started to arrive. Busying themselves behind the desks… we’re waiting here you know? 6:58 and they get up from behind the desk. Finally. Not quite. They stand around to attention, the announcement comes over the PA, they bow and *then* they let us check in.
Curiously security didn’t open until 7:30am – they really expect the first check ins to take that long?
My gate was on the satellite so I took the people mover. I was kind of worried seeing another train coming straight towards us.
Of course, looking closer and you’ll notice the ‘track’ widens in the middle allowing two perfectly timed carriages to pass one another. By now you should be wondering why I’ve called it a people mover, train and carriage. Well I’m not sure what it is really since it seems to levitate – does that mean it’s still a train?
At the gate was more bowing – as the flight crew arrived, they would turn and bow towards the waiting passengers though not for anyone in particular. The captain seemed exempt from this ritual though. You have to admire how a culture can take something as modern and as boring as an airport and spin a bit of tradition on it…
Finally on my plane and I discover JAL 747s have a cool feature – a nose cam! During taxi, we got to see the captain’s view of the tarmac. Once up in the air the VOD systems let you choose between a few angles. Lots of clouds needless to say. It was pretty cool though when you saw the shadow being cast by the plane or the curvature of the earth…
Another kind of natural event beckoned for my return. Typhoon Lintha was due to strike. It largely missed Taiwan, hitting southern China, but causing a lot of wind still as it blew through the straits.
Getting back was delayed of course – at Tokyo we sat at the gate for 90 minutes or so as engineers worked on a ‘technical problem’. I read in the news the following day that the NTSB was investigating a flight from Hong Kong To Tokyo (the first leg before heading to Seattle).
Seems it had one of those airspeed problems that’s in the news a lot right now.
After all that, I’m left thinking (as I type this in an airport lounge), what’s next?
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