Getting to Paradise is anything but...

Anyone who has firsthand experience will agree that a holiday is never more deserved or earned than immediately after being stuck on a still gated plane for 10 hours – not able to get off, not able to take off. It is incredibly stressful – the ultimate state of limbo, that perhaps only Tom Hanks can trump. The sheer anxiety of wondering whether or not you’re ever going to take off is enough to send even the most gentile passenger into a clammy, overheated and red faced, aisle-activist:

In March last year I was due to fly out from Heathrow, and by way of Deli land in Bangkok – city of Smiles (and bedbugs) to spend a month with my almost estranged Californian girlfriend.

I got to the airport on time – that is to say, several hours early – and checked in my luggage with growing frustration at the pace of the queue. Shrugging the anticipated queue ordeal off my shoulders I sauntered to my gate head full of anticipation and excitement.

Good news! As a gate announcement said we’d be taking off 30 minutes early. This was so the plane could slip into an earlier taxing spot and evade predicted poor weather. “Thats a good idea, im certainly not complaining!” I thought - full of pep and potential energy. But that particular plan went awry when the cabin crew arrived 1 hour late. Consequently we ended up boarding the plane 30 minutes after the original time, not 30 minutes before.

What is obvious now, but alluded me at the time, is that delays have a concertina effect and a 30 minute delay can really mean ‘at least 30 minutes’ because now this meant we missed our taxing spot and had to wait for another. During the wait the snow came. The snow we wanted to avoid by leaving early.

I will avoid the minor details, but after a long wait with no announcements, people started to get agitated. The pilot finally trumped up some phatic hyperbole about the snow coming in and us waiting for a new time slot to take off (If this was a game of state the obvious she was doing a good job.). In fact, out of the total of three announcements that were made during our 10 hour gailing on the unmoving plane each was more and more obvious and late...I’m not even sure there was a pilot on the plane in the first place, perhaps there was just a camera linked to a room in a hotel somewhere. I say this because the most candid proclamation the pilot made was right at the end of our flightless flight when she stated that “we should all go home as there were simply no rooms left in any nearby hotels” – how she could possibly know that with such conviction is beyond me.

During this largely muted 10 hour strike at the sufferance of the passengers the crew also became angry and agitated. Now I would say (with my best hostess’ smile) that whether its agreeable or not, emotional labour is an institutionalized requirement of a cabin crews skill set. For me personally the cabin crews visible mood change wasn’t much of a problem – at least we all looked to be in the same boat (plane) now and in truth I am not an advocate of the superficial plastered on smile worn by staff members. Especially when you know that sometimes they harbour nothing but resentment and distain towards the very same person they are aiming the tooth clenched smile towards. That is not to say I think there shouldn’t be a level of respect towards passengers and I feel obliged to mention that at one point an elderly Hindi man approached a crew member to ask for a glass of water, and the retort was a sharp hissing “No! Go and sit down!”. “So much for bridging the gap and rallying together” I thought.

It gets worse. You know the irritation people within the whole fuselage feels when a baby is screaming? Well seemingly on purpose and all in unison - as if imbued with hyper senses that meant they knew something we didn’t - 3 babies started wailing and they didn’t really ever stop (I imagine to this day they are faced head up to the ceiling screaming like Regan MacNeil). As we were approaching our 5^th hour on the plane...at the gate, we were told that the plane needed to be de-iced. Imagine my shock as I watched the plane to the left get de-iced and then skipping us move to the plane to the right. Both planes then took off.  This was the moment I witnessed a fully grown man break down and cry.

The de-icing truck eventually turned its plastic trunk towards us. It spurted for 45 minutes and then disappeared. Now I should mention that when the de-icer started, and for the duration until it was finished, the air conditioning had to be turned off. So when the truck disappeared after 45 minutes it was already getting very hot, muggy, heavy and uncomfortable. The passengers were very agitation, and by now in desperate need of hydration – to either stop or stock up on their tears. The de-icing truck didn’t return for another hour and the air conditioning was left off! The truck finally sauntered back to our lonely plane and continued spewing over us (a good analogy to how we felt we were treated), and nearly 3 hours after it started, it stopped. 3 hours with no air conditioning.

After this point people thought that surely the plane would now get into the air; other planes were taking off as the planes either side of us had, the snow had stopped, the sky looked clearer, and so did the ground outside. And we were ice free. What else could go wrong? After a relatively short time, maybe 30 minutes, like Chinese whispers a rumour spread – this is how we got most of our information in our borderline mutinous cabin, it turned out to be true: If we took off at that point, which presumably we could have, at some point in the air the crew would exceed their maximum working hours which are understandably limited. So why the need to keep us on the plane for 8 hours?! Ive since done the maths and unless I missed something it suggests that even in the very best scenario I was forced to sit on a plane, extremely anxious, ill-informed, and increasingly angry and claustrophobic for 3 or 4 hours more than was necessary. Probably longer. This is when I witnessed two passengers raid the crew cupboards - possibly for any liquids to hydrate, or more likely liquor to sedate.

Soon after this we were released. We emerged into the light of the airport like bleary eyed hominids emerging from a dark cave into blinding sunlight – hair dishevelled, eyes burry and red, smelly, angry and confused, almost reluctant - I felt as though I had a mild case of Stockholm syndrome. Also trepidation, as if from the pan into the fire, because we all knew that stepping off a plane at the same airport you boarded is rarely a good thing, and over the next few days acquiring another seat on a new flight and during bad weather would be fraught with even more stress and woe.

Even though our flightless flight was honestly hellish, the only reason we were all on it for so long and that there was no bloodshed, was because we all honestly felt as though we were going to take off. Now we were offloaded, we all thought that was the end of our holiday/reunion of a loved one/or wedding. Now I previously mentioned that the pilot’s crystal ball had told her that all the hotel rooms in the area were fully booked. So when we bungled out the front of the plane we were all given a number to call which would tell us automated flight information and then we were all told to go home, be that in London, Sheffield or Worthing in my case. Luckily I actively disobeyed this didactic oration, and met a group of four girls from Bristol. Together we walked to the unnamed long haul company’s information stand (it rhymes with Air Windier).

I feel sorry for the people who did go home, because amazingly we were told they were endeavouring to re-seat us on the first available flight in the morning – some 7/ 8 hours later! When we boarded for the second time and 15 hours after the first, fantastically half of the passengers on this plane were familiar to me and my new motley crew - we 5 hardened travellers. Half of us were from the previous flight! However, this flight was also delayed for over 3 hours. It was around this time that somebody picked up one of the crew phones, dialled 31 for ‘Pilot’ and hysterically shouted down the line demanding information. The cabin crew were aware of what had just happened and tentatively beckoned the man to his seat. For the duration of the flight to Deli our luckless bunch were given a whole food and drink preparation area to ourselves to which we promptly turned into a makeshift mile high Euro/Indo bar. Honestly, a majority of the duration of this flight eludes me but when we got to Deli, myself in amongst this group of disbanded diasporic travellers I had become a part of, had to wait a further 9 hours for our connecting flight.

One and a half days after I arrived at Heathrow Airport and finally I set foot on Thai soil. Beside myself with excitement at the prospect of seeing my girlfriend as well as delirious with fatigue, and with a lot of rime to make up I set off post haste to the train station.

Unfortunately, that initial flight out would set the tone of the whole following month, but what I am thinking now is that I am owed 1 days holiday, and reparations for the unforced delay that occurred. If you look back to the beginning if this story I mentioned that we were due to take off and the crew were late which had the knock on effect that snowballed into the 10/15 hour delay incurred. It was not the snow that caused the snowball. So taking this into account, and the other instances of terrible service or outright neglect during what is my case and what should I be reimbursed? My flight cost? 50% of it? And just how common is this occurrence?