Airplanes and tears

Entry for July 29, 2008

24/07/08

Daryl.W

I had to fly to Christchurch to work today. It wasn’t too much of an unpleasant prospect really, except that the weather was pretty much crap. The weather forecast was for extremely high wind and torrential rain - hmmmm pleasant flying conditions ahoy.

So yeah, it was a pretty bumpy take off and it’s always made a touch more unpleasant when small children scream at the slightest hint of turbulence. But on the whole it was reasonably smooth once we got up to 32 thousand.

The day was unremarkable as work days go. Successful but all the same, unremarkable.

The flight home was the tricky bit.

Mundane as the day had been, I was tired.

I was up at 5AM in order to get to the airport on time and the flight home was delayed by an hour and a half due to high wind. I finally managed to board my substitute flight at about 10:30PM and wasn’t exactly feeling like the brightest lamp in the house.

Several things conspired to make it a little unpleasant on the flight home.

Firstly, I was sat next to the emergency hatch and the hostess took exception to the fact that I couldn’t give a rats ass about the delivery of her pox ridden safety spiel. And the situation only got worse when I informed her so.

I fly reasonably often so I am aware that as the person seated next to the emergency exit I am expected to remove the hatch if required and assist in the evacuation of other passengers. I also know that the life jackets are under the seat, the oxygen masks will drop from above if need be and I know the recommended position to take up if I need to brace for impact, enough already!

The second challenge for the flight home was the young girl seated beside me. Believe me, on the whole I have no problem with young women (I am sure those of you who know me well enough are more than aware...) She would have been about 18 or 19 years old and I would have said, a pretty wee thing except... From the moment we sat down she cried!

The flight is only an hour or so but this girl cried for the entire flight!

So what would you do in this situation?

Do you reach out and get told that everything is o.k? – annoying!

Do you reach out and then spend an hour listening to a sob story? – really annoying!!

Or do you do what I did and put your earphones in, turn up your MP3 player and bury your nose in your book. Really, what would you do?