Athens – Then back to Ankara (At least that was what we attempted)
It was close to midnight when we checked into the Metropolitan Hotel. The following morning (Wednesday) I intended to tour Athens, while my friend conducted business. After breakfast I asked the desk clerk whether someone could arrange a three-hour city tour, and he said it would be too late to jump on to any sort of organized effort. He said he’d make a few calls and ring me up in the room. Around 8:45am he called and said he had someone to do it, but it had to be in the next half hour, due to planned protests around town later in the day.
The previous week all kinds of workers had gone on strikes for a day or two (police, hospital staff, etc.) and today it was the taxi drivers’ turn. There is an election approaching and every interest group was lined up to make their agenda known to the next government. In fact we realized that we had left the airport the night before just in time, as the drivers official protest began just after midnight. The gentleman who would take me on the tour called, we agreed on a price, and then re-emphasized the need to get moving.
The driver picked me up at 9:15 in a tiny Hyundai car, and immediately apologized for the small vehicle. Apparently his larger car was “unavailable” this day. Later I learned the true reason. The guide was actually a car service operator and could not be seen on the streets driving his Mercedes, as it would be looked at by peers as a non show of solidarity with the strike (car service and taxi drivers have the same political agenda). So instead he ran out and rented a small inconspicuous car. For three hours the driver showed me Athens’ sites.
The visit to the Acropolis was abbreviated due to dozens of bus tours. The last couple of days it seemed, the facility had been closed due to protests, and there was pent up tourism demand. When I arrived at the ticket office at least four hundred people (mostly from France) were milling about. A glance up at the monument revealed tons of people looking down at the throngs on the ground. I decided to take some pictures from the base, and walked back to the spot the driver was hiding (he wanted to stay a good distance away from the bus parking, as he knew too many regular bus drivers and they would rat on him). Overall it was an enjoyable tour, but I did not see anything that would motivate me to rush back to Athens and spend additional time touring.
That evening my buddy and his gathered business contacts (Americans, Greeks, Turks, and Israelis) met up at a Taverna about three blocks from the Metropolitan to commiserate on the day’s events. While their business venture appeared to be in stasis, it did not damper the opportunity to over-indulge on appetizers, entrees, and politics. There were seven of us and enough food was ordered for twice as many. We sat outside under a patio cover while a raging thunderstorm ensued. After many rounds of drinks the group parted with solutions to all the outstanding, millenniums old, difficulties in the Middle East.
Our flight back to Istanbul was for 7:45am (the airport was purported to be about 44 kilometers away), but with the taxi strike we had to take a bus the hotel was providing gratis at 5:00am. After a quick check-in and security clearance we were off to the British Airways lounge, which Turkish Airways uses for “CIP’s”. Attractive, but small, we were the only people inside for the first half-hour. Snacks were limited and boring, but they had two new Internet terminals with high-speed access. My curiosity revealed the last person visiting Flyertalk on my terminal, had been there only eight hours earlier.
After arriving in IST we cleared customs and walked over to the domestic terminal. It used to be an agonizing walk from the International to the Domestic facilities, while the years long construction projects ensued, but now the stroll is tolerable. My buddy said his wife continuously whines about the walk, as taking “half an hour”. It took twelve minutes, which appeared to validate my friend’s hypothesis that his wife has no sense of time and place. We walked into the Turkish CIP Lounge which had a “Smoking Only” sign at the door, and promptly learned there was a non-smoking facility about 40 meters away. This non-smoking facility was bright and relatively new looking, compared to the smoking one that was dark and dowdy. A less than subtle message, I mused.
The 45-minute flight to Ankara was very bumpy as we were approaching ESB, and we were maybe 1,000 meters from the ground when we broke through the clouds. A minute later, the pilot made a fairly hard right turn and began gaining altitude. An announcement in Turkish (which my friend thinks he translated correctly) stated the wind was suddenly too strong at the airport, and we would be returning to Istanbul. Based upon landmarks, my friend estimated we were about 7 kilometers from the runway.
Upon landing back at Istanbul we parked out about 200 meters from the terminal (most domestic flights are bussed over to the planes anyhow). After a few minutes a small bus pulled up and I believe one of the pilots got off. Quite a few passengers started walking forward to the business class compartment we were sitting in, telling the chief flight attendant that they wanted off the plane (a 737-400) as they missed their business meetings in Ankara, and the trip would be wasted. People flipped on their cellphones to the dismay of the flight attendants, who were paranoid the plane would explode, as they had already started refueling. Few paid them much advice. My buddy’s wife was called and she said she couldn’t believe that the airline had even taken off, as the wind and rain in Ankara had been terrible all morning and she had been convinced their two meter satellite dish was going to uproot itself and fly off. My gut and flying experience told me the pilot aborted due to wind shear. The storm, later described by the buddy’s office staff, was of the type that affirmed to me wind shear would be possibility.
Fairly quickly a number of passenger busses arrived and a whole bunch of people left. I tried to keep count, but a number of people would get off the plane, walk on to the bus, and then get back on the plane. Best estimate is three dozen finally drove off (there were maybe ten empty seats on the plane originally). After another twenty minutes or so, more busses arrived and it was obvious that they were going to empty the plane. We ended up back in a dreary boarding lounge, where 50% of the remaining people lit up cigarettes under two massive non-smoking signs.
Everyone hates delays. However they are often tolerable if the airport facilities are decent and the airline keeps you informed. I’m used to United’s announcement protocols, which are typically very informative, timely, and relatively truthful. Turkish Airways does not subscribe to this customer service mantra. Despite two gate agents in the lounge there were no announcements, and direct interrogation of these two would reveal they had no clue what or when anything would occur. After about 45 minutes in the lounge, two busses arrived and we got back on (no announcements of course, it was all communicated by telekinesis). Passengers were asked to re-identify luggage set out next to the plane, and after a reasonably short interval we were off to the runway. I’d estimate all told, half the passengers had abandoned efforts to get to Ankara on TK120.
All told, from the early morning exiting of the Athens hotel, to arriving at our car in ESB, time elapsed was ten hours. The joys of vacation travel.
While I’ve been diverted to secondary airports because of weather a couple of times, and have been on aborted landings three times, returning to the originating airport was a first for this roughly two million miles lifetime flyer.
To be continued...
[This message has been edited by Craig6z (edited 10-10-2003).]