Door Covered With Frost

February 17, 2010

in Airplane Stories

OK, I grew up both in the US and Japan so I grew up flying. This flight goes down as by far the WORST flight of my life!!!! I now live in Rome, but I spent a lovely 2 weeks vacation in Japan and I was coming back to Rome on Finnair. After one of my best friends told me so many nice things about them, I was excited to fly them, but I found out that their aircraft was old and didn’t even have personal screens.

On my way back to Rome, I reserved a window seat in one of their emergency rows. The flight looked somewhat full, and next to me was a couple from Wales that had been to Japan for their first time. Two hours into our flight, I had noticed that the bottom part of the door was covered with frost and with breeze coming through. I had talked to one of their flight attendants who had said to me, “Well, it REALLY is cold. Unfortunately, there are no seats available, so I will bring you extra blankets and cushions.”

So there they were, trying to cover my legs by wrapping 2 blankets and shoving 2 first class pillows next to my legs, like that was going to help as we were flying over Russia in December with the outdoor breeze coming through. Then, their ridiculousness reached another level when one flight attendant, who was dumb as a box of hair, brought a plastic bottle filled with hot water. Um, it’s minus 75 degrees outside, do you think that will help?

Then their last meal service began and it was about an hour to land to Helsinki since I was flying via Helsinki to Rome. I had complained once more, asking to talk to their chief flight attendant. This old Finnish woman came only to look at me in my face, LAUGH and said, “Oh, that’s too bad because we had another seat up front.” To this, I started asking her why she didn’t show up until now and that there was no communication going through their staff as to where their empty seats were??? I said, “Aren’t you supposed to have perfect communication in order to provide good but if anything SAFE service?” To this she said, “WELL, THAT’S TOO BAD, IM SORRY.”

I had complained and talked to Finnair officials after this, and they said that IT IS NORMAL TO HAPPEN FLYING OVER RUSSIA IN DECEMBER.

Um, sorry, I grew up flying all over the world at different times of the year and NEVER had seen the emergency door covered with frost with breeze coming through…

So, take a minute before you book that F’ing-air ticket.

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

MF February 18, 2010 at 5:35 am

If it was cold, it certainly had nothing to do with 'outside air'. If any air was getting in from outside, then the plane would have de-presuurised, and blown up, which would have been no bad thing judging from your boring post.

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Aaron February 18, 2010 at 7:58 am

Something like this happened to me on a domestic flight. I was next to the exit and had to wrap blankets around my legs because there was clearly some kind of extremely cold draft coming right through. No frost though.

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meme February 18, 2010 at 8:33 am

Japan to Helsinki to Rome ? Man I would have found a better route.

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Increasedosologist February 18, 2010 at 10:04 am

The breeze you felt was going from inside out through a leak in the door not from outside in. The cold had nothing to do with the outside air. It's just a cooling effect of the pressure drop as inside air is escaping to lower pressure outside. Same thing that happens in the air conditioner evaporator. This problem is really to fix, but just like flat tire it can happen anytime and somebody has to be the first to find it. It's just bad luck that you had to be that somebody.

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GMMR February 19, 2010 at 4:02 am

cleaver name. I know what an osoligist is but what is an increasedosologist?

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GMMR February 19, 2010 at 4:02 am

clever name. I know what an osoligist is but what is an increasedosologist?

Reply

IncreaseDosologist February 22, 2010 at 5:24 am

It's increase-dosologist – the doctor who specializes in increasing the doses of medication that already been prescribed by some other lame doctors who don't really know how to party.

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