Flying from Buffalo to Montreal with a 50 minute layover in Washington Dulles Airport.
The first leg of the flight was delayed due to the inbound flight. At first 15 minutes, then another 15 minutes. At this point, I have 20 minutes to catch my next flight, and I had to check in my bag because I was carrying very dangerous material… a bottle of alcohol.
Needless to say, the gates cannot be next to each other. I have to catch a transfer and I get to the gate of my second flight on the nose, but the flight is already closed. The airline representative behind the desk tells me to go see customer service, 10 gates up… where I ran from to get to this gate.
The service desk has 1 person working, and 4 people were in line before I got there. Half an hour of waiting, and I am told the only option is to go back to Toronto (right above Buffalo), and go to Montreal from there and my bag will follow me.
I end up taking a flight from Washington to Toronto, another half hour late, and an hour after I was supposed to be in Montreal. In Toronto, I have to get my bag to take it through customs, but guess what… no bag. And I cannot just fill out a form and be on my way… no… I have to fill out a form, and go wait in line at customer service to hand in the form there. The customs officer literally just took the form from me and that was it.
I finally make it to the gate of my last leg just in time (I had a good hour and a half to two layover but it was all eaten up by delays as I explained).
All this, and nothing from the airline. How is it that my time is so worthless to them and I cannot do anything about it?
I was dreading the flight even before take-off in Bhuj, India, near Pakistan. Not exactly on the map for international fun seekers. I was there as a media consultant for a Jain charity called Veerayatan. Security is tight at the airport and run by the Indian Army, so that means that it is a secure pain in the backside.
The Kingfisher flight to Mumbai was quick and painless. Then to arrive in Mumbai to scenes that bring to mind Dante’s “Inferno.” Security, complete with machine gun and ¼”steel shield, told me I couldn’t enter the international airport until 3 hours before my flight because there was no room inside. I had to pay 60 Rupees to sit in a “safe-room” on the airport grounds for 4 hours.
Finally through a dozen security checks, 3 hours in lines and on the aircraft, Air India flight 131 to Heathrow. A dirty 777 and my exit row seat was like sitting on concrete with its padding missing. I don’t even want to talk about all this it is so bad. The dehumanizing security, on and off the plane. The air staff are all state-run “job-for-life” types. The food that I couldn’t eat, and if I knew then that I wasn’t going to get any food for the next 20 hours, I should have. And just the complete disregard of all that is clean, human and decent.
In flight there was nothing to report, they dimmed the lights and I napped for 10 minutes at a time. At 4 in the morning I again said no to the awful food because in 4 hours I could eat in London – I thought. As we passed the white cliffs of Dover, England we were due to arrive early, 7:05 UK time, but then we started circling again and again. Forty-five minutes of this and the Captain comes on the PA system and says because of fog at Heathrow we are diverting to Gatwick.
Not so bad, I thought, because Gatwick is only 30 minutes by train to my house. So I’m home! We landed and parked and everyone jumped up as you do after a long flight. The seatbelt sign stayed on. I was telling the Indian passengers around me how to get from Gatwick to London on the Gatwick Express train to Victoria station. Thirty minutes and I’m home sweet home.
It was a normal 4 hours of being jerked around when suddenly I heard, “No cameras!! Turn off the camera!” This is when any Journo will run for his camera. So I got mine and rushed in. I’d been staying out of it because of the hourly promises of being “in the air again” soon. But word got out that the crew would be leaving the plane and fresh air crew were on their way from Heathrow. The EU rule is that 14 hours is the maximum for aircrew. My fellow passengers went crazy in a ripple effect to the back of the plane. Like a Mexican wave they were standing up and surging forward. Angry chaos and I’m in the crush with live video. Suddenly I was grabbed by the BBC journalist, Rahul Joglekar, and he pulled me into the fray with my video camera to document this treatment.
There was a crush for the next hour of a heavily pregnant woman, several diabetics pleading for food and drink, and 100 other angry folks with concerns about missed connections, the condition of the toilets and so on. There was no food left and the water ran out hours ago. Anger was building as everyone dreamed of reasons to get off the plane. Most of the passengers were Indian nationals, so leaving the plane without proper authority would mean big immigration troubles, so they were truly held hostage by Air India. I have an EU friendly passport, so with the help of a Polish girl we decided to get off with the crew.
Things got to a fever pitch when a group of Indian businessmen began banging on the door of the cockpit. In the US this is a no-go area under threat of deadly force from the armed Sky Marshal onboard. The gentlemen were demanding the Captain come out and explain this situation. He would not come out. Where is this armed Sky Marshal that’s supposed to be on all international flights? This is when security broke down.
We were being kept from contacting the outside world to save a couple of Rupees on passenger landing fees at Gatwick. Security was non-existent, so I left the plane and wandered around the tarmac. The Polish girl came out for a while but went back in because she missed all the yelling inside. I loved the peace and solitude of the great outdoors.
It was 30 minutes later that authorities and 4 constables of the West Sussex Police Force arrived. They were very jovial as they told me to turn off the camera, which I complied with. Then they did a short interview essentially asking what I was doing outside the plane. I said, “It’s a madhouse in there. I can’t stay in there. Please don’t make me go back in. There’s no toilets, no food, no water… and no alcohol.” So I established I wasn’t drunk. There is no alcohol served on Air India. They told me I could stay right where I was at, but not to wander around too much. English police are so nice, polite and gentle.
They then went on to quell the situation inside and gave passengers a shoulder to cry on for the next three hours, something that Air India could not seem to do. International law states that the airline has complete authority over its “cargo” until it decides otherwise. The officers explained there was nothing they could do to get us off that plane. It was up to Air India.
At 17:30 we finally arrived at Heathrow. The replacement crew arrived late, having gotten lost in Gatwick airport. Not a good sign. We forced the old crew to stay with us and not leave the plane. So we were one big happy family again! All this hassle for thirty miles “as the crow flies.”
Here is a letter that I received from Air India afterwards:
The videos below explain it much better than I can put into words what happened. A full-out 9 hour hostage drama.
(Security issues are serious and in no way just silly things to do. Don’t ever try leaving an aircraft without permission. Always be on your best behaviour while traveling.)
Not so long ago I was flying with my family nonstop from Dulles to Beijing on United. Not as if that was very bad, I mean, it’s just a flight, not your junior year in college. Any other option would have cost more anyway. This was the first time I flew United, and my second time flying (first one was D.C. to Paris).
Anyways, we got to the airport on time, made it through everything and got to the gate. We then decided to buy something to eat. We made our way through that and started to wait. I pulled out my laptop and checked the time till departure. An hour, which seemed to be enough time to edit Wikipedia (yeah, I’m a nerd). Half an hour later, I checked the boarding time. Still an hour left. “Huh?” I thought. We were then notified about some “lightning storms” that, according to my computer, were far, far away, like in the middle of West Virginia. OK, fine. More time to teach the world about Russian battleships.
Soon I heard a message: “Abdul Amnar Hagid” (or something like that, it started with “Abdul”), please come to gate D12 (our gate) to claim your lost baggage. During the course of three hours this was repeated several times, along with a reminder of the fact that lightning storms were delaying our plane. I got kind of freaked out. Arab guy losing baggage that was scheduled to be on our plane? Not a good sign.
Fast forward an hour. We were allowed to board the plane after being told that “gate difficulties” had delayed our plane for another hour. We got on and waited. And waited. We were then told that an “important document” was being waited for and that the flight would be delayed. “Superb,” I thought. We were shepherded off the plane after another two hours of waiting and given: cookies. Or, more specifically, a cookie. Our 12:37 departure time had been delayed by 6.5 hours, and we were being compensated with cookies. I got pissed.
Finally we got onto the lane, and fourteen and a half hours later (half hour holding due to the amount of traffic over Beijing), we landed. Not a word from United. Not a word. I’m not flying them again.
While not as hellish as some of the other stories here, I did have a miserable flight.
Flew from Dulles to Logan one weekend a few years ago for the high school reunion. Normally, the flight is a tad bit over an hour, so I foolishly assumed that a 2:30pm flight with no checked in luggage would allow me to get to the kick-off dinner which started at 7pm with no problems. (Insert laughter here.)
We taxied out to the runway, just to be pulled over to the side due to some computer issue. Sat there for an hour; they wheeled us back to the terminal, but wouldn’t let anyone off the plane. We sat at least another hour. Roughly around 5pm the flight attendants were told that they had to leave the plane, but the passengers had to stay on.
Did anyone really think it was that smart to leave a bunch of less than unhappy people (most of whom probably would have reached their final Boston destination) alone on a plane that seemed like it was going nowhere?Those with cell phones were trying to see if they could get other flights. Everything seemed to either have already left, or was fully booked.
At one point one of the passengers raided the food truck to see if there was food and passed out whatever liquids she could get her hands on. No food to be found. However, several people happily took the little wine bottles.
Maybe 30 minutes later a new flight crew came onboard. Wisely, they didn’t say anything about the raided food cart and someone found some energy bars which got passed out to people. Around 6:30 we finally got into the air. My new captain could not stop apologizing.
I think that the biggest kicker for me (not that she gave me any reason to complain), was my neighbor on the flight told whoever she was talking to on her phone, “I have HAD to be on my cell this whole time.” Conference call? Nope. Clearly the latest gossip in her life.
No idea who missed connections, I was just glad to be off that plane so I didn’t bother to see if I could get some compensation for the miserable trip. Fortunately the flight back was without any event.
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