On-Time Updates

A Flight Across the Channel

The latest post on the blog at Naked Translations about a turbulent flight to France whilst contemplating the nature of understatement (read the entry here) made me think of a particular flight I once took across the English channel.

I was living in Germany for my year abroad while my then-girlfriend (now wife) was spending a semester in Swansea, Wales. We managed to visit each other at least once a month while she was there, so the short jumps across the Channel became almost routine.

This particular flight I have in mind was not routine, however. I booked it through a travel agency, where the travel agent was very nice and managed to find me an incredibly cheap deal that I couldn't pass up. At first I thought she said I was flying out of "München" (Munich), which was strange because I was in Dortmund, several hundred miles away.

It turned out that the flight was actually out of Mönchengladbach, a tiny airport near Düsseldorf. That was much better location-wise. I was able to take local transportation to get there in about an hour and a half.

When I arrived, there was nobody at the check-in counters yet. I think there were only two of them. The only people at the place were the women staffing the information booth. I had a snack and waited. Eventually, the info booth closed and the women moved over to the check-in counters. Apparently they were serving two functions at the little airport.

They promptly checked me in using Bic pens and hand writing my boarding pass, recording my check-in on a clipboard. There were no computers involved at all.

I thought my experience with the info/check-in ladies was finished after that, but it turned out that they were the ground crew, as well. They announced the boarding of the flight and led us out to the plane on the tarmac. I thought they might be coming with us to England, but their duties ended there. Still, not bad - 3 jobs handled by the same two people.

The flight was the single most horrible flight I have ever been on. The turbulence over the Channel was usually bad, especially since I always flew on dinky little prop planes. This one, though, was just insane. I think my head actually hit the ceiling at one point.

To make matters inconceivably worse, just when we were cruising over about the middle of the Channel, I noticed that my armrest was held onto the seat by a piece of duct tape.

Duct tape. Seriously.

Not only that, but looking up, I noticed that a section of the overhead compartments were secured with the stuff as well. I simply couldn't believe it. The plane looked ancient from the outside and sounded like the engines were inside the cabin.

I have never been more skeptical as to whether my plane was actually going to land as I was on that flight.

Posted by steve at January 21, 2004 12:27 PM