Noctilux
Feb 26, 04, 12:43 pm
Last night my wife & I left Palm Beach 4 hrs before our flight was due to leave MIA, as there had been heavy rain & we did not wish to get caught in traffic on the Florida Turnpike.
Fat Chance.
A 60 minute trip turned into a 140minute nightmare with nose to tail traffic.
Called AA confirmed that take off would be at the scheduled 19:50
We get to Hertz, dump the rental car, run to airport, my wife looks as if she is about to have a coronary episode
Wait for bags to be scanned, get to gate 20 min before scheduled take off; there is a huge crowd at the gate; sign says the flight is going to Mexico City. Ask staffer, tells us our flight is leaving after the Mexico City one, but from same gate. Tells us not to go to the Club as our flight could be leaving any time.
MIA looks like the last days of Saigon, we leave for the club, walking through the terminal we see 3 flight crew members walking towards the gate; I stop them & ask if they are LHR bound. The blond female member of the group replies that they are & that they expect to take off at 20:20. So we go to the club. Time passes, we are told that the flight might be 20:30 but they will know later, the indicator boards show a range of times with the final one being 22:20. So, at 21:45 (90 minutes after the scheduled takeoff time) we head down to the gate. As we arrive, they are boarding 1st, Business & Group 1; so we saunter aboard, plop down into 12 A&B & await take off.
Fat chance.
Boarding seems to take an inordinate time & so we get to watch the rest of the passengers as they line up in the aisles; I am always amazed at the stuff some people bring on board as carry on luggage, one guy had a bag large enough to carry a pair of German Shepherds. But my wife has a better eye than I do and noticed a gent in a blue sweater who seemed to have some difficulty in maintaining balance. “He is out of his skull” she opined to me; “Drunk?” I queried; “As a skunk” she confirmed. By this time he was gone & I went back to my New Yorker. We were now well past take off time & although the crew seemed eager to close the doors there were around dozen people standing in the aisles at the front of Economy, and sporadically couples would detach themselves from this knot & move to the doors to converse with the FAs; after a few moments they would return always looking disconsolate. After another 20 minutes a Gate Agent came on with a bunch of boarding passes & proceeded to distribute them to the knot, this then caused further problems as several of the group seemed unhappy with their newly allocated seats.
Then the captain came on the PA and it turned out to be the young lady I had spoken to previously,
Anne Singer, and she had to give us the bad news that there was a problem with our APU oil level and that maintenance was looking into it. She was apologetic & professional at the same time and did not seem to be speaking platitudes. Then at around 22:50 the doors were closed & we all felt that we were ready for pushback.
Fat chance
We sat at the gate with the doors closed for around 10 minutes and then the captain came back on the PA to let us know that the doors would have to be re-opened in order for a Gate Agent to come aboard in order to deal with a “Safety Issue”. An audible groan rose through the plane, and a couple of moments later the gent whom my wife had identified as drunk came lurching down the aisle. He hung around the door area for a few moments until it opened & he left. But the PA brought us the really bad news; they had to find his luggage. This took some considerable time & the gent in front of me became somewhat irate with the FA working our aisle. She offered to get him a comment card & went off to find one, returning after a few minutes to say that there were none on the plane; at which point the gentleman went “ballistic”. The FA then went off & returned a few moments later with the captain, who proceeded to placate the gent in a very professional way. She agreed with his comments & explained the whole rolling series of problems to him. She did make one interesting point, she said she found it difficult to understand why AA56 was not given priority over other flights as it was the “most important flight out of MIA each day, it is our biggest plane, full to capacity & to our most important overseas destination”. At the end of the discussion, she shook hands with the gent & returned to the cockpit; I remarked to my wife “That is the difference between a captain & a pilot”. I think she managed the situation wonderfully & defused what could easily have become a problem.
At 23:40 we pushed back, almost 4 hours after scheduled but our problems were not yet over as we sat on the runway for a further 20+ minutes & at 00:09 we finally were able to take off. At this point the cabin crew really came to the fore; they brought out our dinners within 5 minutes of the plane levelling off. The meals were served with appetiser, salad, bread & main course all on the plate together; this meant we all ate quite quickly & were able to get some sleep. Molly who was working our aisle was really a star, the smile never left her face & she seemed almost to read the passenger’s minds, for example bringing me a bottle of water just as I was thinking I could do with one.
My wife & I slept for almost the whole of the flight & were awoken 30 min out from LHR by the request to return our Bose headsets to the bags. When Molly collected them, she asked if we would like coffee even though we were only 20 min out. She brought the coffees & 2 minutes later on another pass through the cabin noticed I had spilled some coffee on my WSJ; she immediately brought me a fresh copy.
We felt as if we were now home & dry.
Fat chance
LHR ATC put us into a holding pattern for 10 minutes, so we finally touched down at 13:10; almost exactly 4 hours late. I think, overall, that AA screwed up on getting the plane to the gate, or getting it to an alternate gate and I think the Gate Agent who let the obviously drunk passenger on the plane was also at fault. But their performance overall was very good, as someone who works in the service industry I realise that things will sometimes go wrong. The difference between professionals and amateurs is how they deal with the problems & I feel that they handled the problems well & with humour.
Keep the faith.........keep flying.
------------------
Fat Chance.
A 60 minute trip turned into a 140minute nightmare with nose to tail traffic.
Called AA confirmed that take off would be at the scheduled 19:50
We get to Hertz, dump the rental car, run to airport, my wife looks as if she is about to have a coronary episode
Wait for bags to be scanned, get to gate 20 min before scheduled take off; there is a huge crowd at the gate; sign says the flight is going to Mexico City. Ask staffer, tells us our flight is leaving after the Mexico City one, but from same gate. Tells us not to go to the Club as our flight could be leaving any time.
MIA looks like the last days of Saigon, we leave for the club, walking through the terminal we see 3 flight crew members walking towards the gate; I stop them & ask if they are LHR bound. The blond female member of the group replies that they are & that they expect to take off at 20:20. So we go to the club. Time passes, we are told that the flight might be 20:30 but they will know later, the indicator boards show a range of times with the final one being 22:20. So, at 21:45 (90 minutes after the scheduled takeoff time) we head down to the gate. As we arrive, they are boarding 1st, Business & Group 1; so we saunter aboard, plop down into 12 A&B & await take off.
Fat chance.
Boarding seems to take an inordinate time & so we get to watch the rest of the passengers as they line up in the aisles; I am always amazed at the stuff some people bring on board as carry on luggage, one guy had a bag large enough to carry a pair of German Shepherds. But my wife has a better eye than I do and noticed a gent in a blue sweater who seemed to have some difficulty in maintaining balance. “He is out of his skull” she opined to me; “Drunk?” I queried; “As a skunk” she confirmed. By this time he was gone & I went back to my New Yorker. We were now well past take off time & although the crew seemed eager to close the doors there were around dozen people standing in the aisles at the front of Economy, and sporadically couples would detach themselves from this knot & move to the doors to converse with the FAs; after a few moments they would return always looking disconsolate. After another 20 minutes a Gate Agent came on with a bunch of boarding passes & proceeded to distribute them to the knot, this then caused further problems as several of the group seemed unhappy with their newly allocated seats.
Then the captain came on the PA and it turned out to be the young lady I had spoken to previously,
Anne Singer, and she had to give us the bad news that there was a problem with our APU oil level and that maintenance was looking into it. She was apologetic & professional at the same time and did not seem to be speaking platitudes. Then at around 22:50 the doors were closed & we all felt that we were ready for pushback.
Fat chance
We sat at the gate with the doors closed for around 10 minutes and then the captain came back on the PA to let us know that the doors would have to be re-opened in order for a Gate Agent to come aboard in order to deal with a “Safety Issue”. An audible groan rose through the plane, and a couple of moments later the gent whom my wife had identified as drunk came lurching down the aisle. He hung around the door area for a few moments until it opened & he left. But the PA brought us the really bad news; they had to find his luggage. This took some considerable time & the gent in front of me became somewhat irate with the FA working our aisle. She offered to get him a comment card & went off to find one, returning after a few minutes to say that there were none on the plane; at which point the gentleman went “ballistic”. The FA then went off & returned a few moments later with the captain, who proceeded to placate the gent in a very professional way. She agreed with his comments & explained the whole rolling series of problems to him. She did make one interesting point, she said she found it difficult to understand why AA56 was not given priority over other flights as it was the “most important flight out of MIA each day, it is our biggest plane, full to capacity & to our most important overseas destination”. At the end of the discussion, she shook hands with the gent & returned to the cockpit; I remarked to my wife “That is the difference between a captain & a pilot”. I think she managed the situation wonderfully & defused what could easily have become a problem.
At 23:40 we pushed back, almost 4 hours after scheduled but our problems were not yet over as we sat on the runway for a further 20+ minutes & at 00:09 we finally were able to take off. At this point the cabin crew really came to the fore; they brought out our dinners within 5 minutes of the plane levelling off. The meals were served with appetiser, salad, bread & main course all on the plate together; this meant we all ate quite quickly & were able to get some sleep. Molly who was working our aisle was really a star, the smile never left her face & she seemed almost to read the passenger’s minds, for example bringing me a bottle of water just as I was thinking I could do with one.
My wife & I slept for almost the whole of the flight & were awoken 30 min out from LHR by the request to return our Bose headsets to the bags. When Molly collected them, she asked if we would like coffee even though we were only 20 min out. She brought the coffees & 2 minutes later on another pass through the cabin noticed I had spilled some coffee on my WSJ; she immediately brought me a fresh copy.
We felt as if we were now home & dry.
Fat chance
LHR ATC put us into a holding pattern for 10 minutes, so we finally touched down at 13:10; almost exactly 4 hours late. I think, overall, that AA screwed up on getting the plane to the gate, or getting it to an alternate gate and I think the Gate Agent who let the obviously drunk passenger on the plane was also at fault. But their performance overall was very good, as someone who works in the service industry I realise that things will sometimes go wrong. The difference between professionals and amateurs is how they deal with the problems & I feel that they handled the problems well & with humour.
Keep the faith.........keep flying.
------------------