Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch
Last month, the wife and I took a trip to visit our grandson in Idaho. We flew from New Orleans to Idaho Falls via Denver and returned via Dallas. One of the things that was unique about this journey is that it was the first time I had been on an airplane in twenty‑five years.
No, I’m not afraid of going up in the air. Way back then, we returned from a cruise and flew from San Diego to Lake Charles. I’ll admit that my memory may have faded a little, but I remember the flight changes resulted in our luggage arriving at a different destination. Of course, when it was found a few days later, they wanted me to make another trip to retrieve it.
Over the years, I just snicker every time I read about a tech glitch than cancels thousands of flights. Same for bad weather, air congestion, maintenance delays, employee strikes and the myriad of other things that make air travel inconvenient.
After deciding to fly, we decided to make it easy. Because of my mobility issues, we scheduled plenty of layover time in the two cities. We didn’t check any bags which precluded the worry of lost luggage. This also saved us the forty dollar cost of checking.
The outbound trip was great. Even TSA was nothing more than a time delaying inconvenience. We left and arrived as scheduled. I was even enjoying the journey just a little.
Then we came home. The plane left Idaho Falls on schedule. We were in the air for about thirty minutes when the pilot made an important announcement. There was a door that failed to close after takeoff. He said it had something to do with the air conditioning system and was not a hazard to flying. The only problem was that the plane could not fly at a high altitude, nor as fast as normal. He then said there was not enough fuel to get to Dallas, so we would have to land and repair the problem.
At first we headed back to Idaho Falls, but then it was determined to go to Salt Lake City. Then he told us we had to circle the airport and use up excess fuel before landing. We landed in Utah for repairs. The pilot was correct that it wouldn’t take very long. After a little more than an hour, everyone was back on the plane.
The pilot soon announced that we would take off just as soon as some needed chemicals were poured into the lavatory. Most of the passengers had a good laugh when someone in the back yelled, “Why didn’t you do it while most people were off of the plane?” About a half hour later, we were in the air again.
Like many others, when we got to Dallas, our connecting flight was gone. We were rescheduled to leave at eleven the next morning. The airline gave us vouchers for a motel. We finally got there around eleven. After a lousy nights sleep we got back to the airport almost three hours early. I just wanted to get through TSA (which was much more difficult than the other two times) and get back home.
We got to the departure gate about an hour and a half early. About a half hour before take off we started to worry a little. There was no plane at the gate. I found an employee and asked. The gate had been changed. There was no announcement, either on the loudspeaker or the monitor.
We got to the new gatet with about ten minutes to spare. The door to the jetway was closed. I said a few bad words. It turned out that it had closed by accident and no one had the code needed to reopen it. We finally got on the plane and made it to New Orleans.
Even with all of the improvements in technology, I’m still not impressed with airlines.
Thanks for reading.