The Flight from the Underworld

“I’m sorry folks, but…”  We heard a version of that several times on the second leg of my trip.  At first it was a mechanical repair, then it was our co-pilot being over his allotted hours, then having to run some diagnostics.  All in all, we spent about four hours waiting in our plane on the tarmac at the airport.  At one point, they had driven the plane to another gate to let the co-pilot off and wait for a new one and while we waited, they let us all off for fifteen minutes.  That’s when one of the staff got on the microphone and said, “I know it’s been a flight from the underworld for you all tonight…”  (Halloween no less.)

As far as I went, I was only concerned that it was going to be a very late night for the woman picking me up.  Other than that, I didn’t mind too much.  Between being stuck overnight in Chicago once and having experienced Kenya travel myself and through the stories of others, I had other things to compare the flight to than ones that always left on time.  On top of that, I had no connection to make, I had been assigned a window seat in the emergency row with lots of leg room, a very nice and interesting young woman named Brie was my seat partner with an empty seat between us where we could spread out our stuff, and her delightful and funny mother and brother were sitting on the other side of the aisle.  All in all, I actually enjoyed it.  It was one of those moments when I got to decide what kind of attitude I was going to have.  I could be upbeat and laugh, or I could be grumpy and impatient.  Either way, we were going to be sitting there on the tarmac for the same amount of time.  I chose to laugh.

We laughed when they came over the intercom to tell us they were giving us each a voucher but didn’t tell us what it was because my neighbors and I then came up with all kinds of things it could be: a free soda on our next flight or a dollar off our next purchase being our favorites.  We laughed again when the baby started making runs for the main door via crawling down the aisle at full speed with it’s mother hurrying along behind to catch him.  We wanted to time him to see how long it would take him to get there or find another baby and hold races.  We laughed some more after leaving the gate again and then waiting, again, on the tarmac, without the pilot coming on to tell us why.  We figured he was too afraid to tell us what was going on after all the hours we had already waited so we entertained ourselves by coming up with all the possibilities of what could be causing our delay.  A new crew or new pilot being our top guesses.

There were some passengers who were rather irate by the end.  I can understand that.  I would have been far more upset myself if I had to be somewhere at a certain time or had a connection to  make that I would have certainly missed.  That’s when the test of a good attitude really comes into play.  But as I didn’t, I was fine and now I have some kind of voucher to use and since I love to travel, any help in paying for that is appreciated.  In the end, it’s true what they say, “Good things come to those who wait.”  Thank you God for a safe flight here.