All of us have traveled on airlines several times and within those several times there would be an interesting event or story which may have happened either to you or to others. This may have happened on the way to the airport, at the airport, in the plane or after getting down at your destination. Whatever be the case, we want to hear about it. 🙂
If you dont have any to relate, I would say that next time sharpen your observation skills.
I definitely have few stories related to air travel, one of them being – We did consular processing for GC, both of us had gone seperately to India via different airlines. The return date was same, Jayesh’s plane was supposed to land couple of hours before mine. However Jayesh’s plane got delayed from India and i landed before him. For consular processing they do finger printing at airport and it was the rule then(not sure if it is now) that dependent cannot enter the country before the primary applicant for GC. They made me sit in a cube with a security guard to watch so that i don’t runaway 🙂 Thank god the plane was landing in couple of hours !!! Ofcourse the security guard was nice, did let me call the friend who was supposed to pick us up from their phone, gave me updates whether Jayesh’s plane landed or not.
Me going to India for first time from Tricities mini-mini airport in Tennessee via British Airways. Airport officials told me they are unable to checkin baggage all the way to Mumbai for some reason. So I will get my baggage in London and then I can check it in again. Oh Oh….
I reached London. Flight was already late. And I just had couple of hours to catch the next flight. The next flight was from a different airport (Heathrow vs Gattwick). I collected my bags, cleared Green Channel and rushed out. An airhostess was waiting for me to put me in a cab.
Cab took me from one airport to another (45 mins).
Cab was a Pakistani and we had a nice chat about India-Pak friendship in London.
I finally reached the other airport and checked in my luggage again. I made the plane but just in time. Whew !!!
No one else has any airline story to tell? Surprising !!!
Anyway, here is one more. While going to India from here via Cathay. We had halt at Hong Kong. At HK some Gujju men dealing in jewellery or something like that boarded. They were seated in front of us.
And they would not stop yapping. One guy aaram se pulled his seat in recline position (even before takeoff) and started chatting on cell phone. Even when plane started to take-off he kept talking on cell phone. We had to request him to put his seat in normal position and air-hostess came to talk to him to put his cell phone down.
Some people are just difficult to travel with…
Oh that Hong Kong – Bombay leg felt like standing in PanchRatan Bldg Area in Bombay. Flight was full of Gujju diamond merchant & Businessmen, knowing each other. Talking over the isles, breaking most of the inflight rules. Showing off their phones & other gadget. Talking about where they ate in HKG & China during their stay. Only thing remaining was starting a cards game.
KV still sleeping. no problem. I will continue to document my adventures. 🙂
Has to be our worst travel trip in terms of planes and hotels. This was when we went for Kojain Convention in New Jersey in 2000 or so.
First the flight landed at New Jersey very late due to weather problems. By that time, our rental car place was closed. We stood in line for another rental car that was open. After standing in line for 1hour+, we came to know that they are only giving cars to those people who had previous reservations. Oh boy!!!
Then we walked over 1/4 mile to another car rental place and rented a car finally. Upon reaching our motel, we found it to be a really shabby motel (suited for truck drivers, etc). We must have reached motel at around 4 or 4.30am. We decided to stay there for the night anyway and change motels next day.
Thankfully the Kojain Convention itself was great. Of course driving around in New Jersey was an experience by itself and getting used to concept of Jug-Handles instead of U-turns took some time.
On the way back, the flight got cancelled at connecting airport. We had to spend the night at a airport hotel. The rooms were really really small. We reached Bay Area on Monday noon instead of Sunday night and missed half-a-day of work day.
Me and Mita, going to India from SF-Cincinnati-Frankfurt-Mumbai in 1996 by Delta airlines. The plane from SF was pre-poned (yes pre-poned) by 2 hours. Did not know until we called in the morning to check whether the flight was on time or not. Scrambled to get the Taxi guy to come early. Then the delta plane had technical glitch at Cincinnati. Plane delayed by 7 hours. Delta was nice enough to provide free food and phones to call (including international). Called many folks in India 🙂
Connecting flight missed in Frankfurt. Lousy Immigration service at Frankfurt. No free calling :-(. Waited like refugees for 5 hours to get transit visa in Frankfurt so that we can go out of hte airport to the hotel and get a next day flight. Delta provided a hotel room (was a good 4 star hotel) and a calling card to call india to let them know that we missed the flight. Calling card expired after 2 minutes of calling to India. Since it was peak time in Decemberr, next day we have to go in early to the airport and see whether we could catch any of the ongoing flights to India. some folks with us got in first class of other airline. Some had to go to London to get another flight. We then got a flight after going early to the airport and standing in line for couple of hours – However i was on the last row and Mita on the first row of the flight.
Wrote a lenghty letter to Delta after coming back from India. They apologized and sent airline Vouchers ($$$)
I am sure Bhavesh you enjoyed the break….on the last bench 🙂 just kidding Mita marna mat
We were going to Stockholm from MD via Newark, NJ. We had called the shuttle around noon. The guy showed up on time but we had 6-7 big bags and a stroller which we hardly managed to put in the shuttle and the driver had to pick yet 2 more passengers after us. He called the dispatch and they suggested him not to pick us up. Luckily Samir’s brother was present at that time, we shifted few bags in his car and he followed us to the airport.
By the time we reached the gate, after changing Keya (she was 4 months old), picking up some lunch from the airport, clearing security etc. they were just about to close the gate.
I was litterly running with Keya in the stroller and hand bag, lunch bag etc. and bhumi was following me on the jetway which had stairs to go down as plane was standing little far away from the gate. (The men at the gate did not warn us about this or did not even help us board the plane at that time.) I barely managed to save the stroller from falling down the stairs but some of the things I was carrying fell including our boarding passes which I did not realize 🙁
Anyhow, we boarded the plane and it waited on the runway for an hour or so. At that time we realized that we had lost our boarding pass for the connecting flight. We asked the crew to call the airport and help us but they denied.
We reached NJ, with only 20 min to board our next flight. But without boarding passes, no go. We then made about 5 -6 trips between 2 terminals, 1 where United folks were located as the ticket was issued by them and the other where SAS (Scandanavian Airline) was located since the filght from Newark to Stockholm was operated by them, trying to figure out what to do next, get new boarding passes and figure out where our baggage was.
We were able to get seats on a later flight opearted by Malaysian Air and knew our baggage was sitting in the SAS baggage area. When we reached Stockholm, our baggage had not arrived and were helped by an Gujarati guy who was working for Malaysian Airline at the airport to figure out where our baggage was (still in Newark) and also making sure it arrived on the next flight from Newark to Stockholm.
Our bags were delivered to the hotel the next morning but all locks were broken and we found that the pouch of CDs which ahd about 30-40 hindi CDs and a few kids DVDs was gone 🙁
BTW it was 15th nov. 2004 and since then we have been afraid to fly on 15th Nov. 🙁
I had told someone that this post would fetch at least 10 comments and hence this is the 10th comment. 🙂
“The plane journey that we never made”.
Dimple and me came back from India and next day we had to fly immediately to Seattle. We sat in the plane and instantly slept off due to jet lag. We got up directly when the plane had landed. We thought the plane is still in San Francisco trying to take off. Only after a few moments did we realize we are already at our destination. 🙂
I get such kind of sleep during the lay over (in the waiting area). I remember once I was coming back with both the girls alone and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t help keep my eyes open for long period of time. Whenever I opened my eyes, I would take a glance at both the girls and luggage and go back to sleep. 🙂