As regulars here will know Thomo spends a good deal of time in aircraft flying from here to there and back again. In my time I have flown on some pretty amazing airlines, some very ordinary airlines and some downright scary. Friday night’s flight on Garuda back to Singapore was perhaps the most bizarre one.
I was flying GA834 from Soekarno-Hatta Jakarta to Changi Singapore.
The oddness started when the tannoy announced that they were boarding the flight whilst I was still walking to the gate – and I was walking there 5 minutes before scheduled boarding. Arrived at the gate to find that the aircraft had not arrived yet. I then spent a pleasant 10 minutes considering what we could board instead of the aircraft.
Another tannoy announcement, distorted in the best Sydney CityRail manner, but which sounded something like “Mr Thompson Ian Leslie please see the desk staff”.
“Hmm” thinks I, “flight looks very full, wonder what this is?”
I was asked if I minded swapping seats as a father was travelling with his son and they could not get seats next to each other. I agreed and went back to waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
In fact, we waited another 45 minutes or so past departure time before boarding. We boarded. Once the doors were closed, the two seats beside me were still empty and where I was sitting before swapping was, sure enough, taken up by a man with his son next to him. Two people turned up from the business section and sat next to me. The ‘plane was disconnected from the air-bridge and started engine power-up.
The co-pilot then came out of the business class toilet and sat back down in the cockpit. The cabin crew closed the door again. It was fortunate that he had finished in the toilet as an old gentleman travelling in business class needed the toilet and as he was unsteady on his legs, he had to be assisted into the cubicle.
We reached the end of the taxiway but the old guy was still in the toilet. The ‘plane then sat and waited until the old chap could be persuaded back out of the toilet and re-seated. The gentleman now sitting next to me was called forward to assist as it seems it was his father. We waited and eventually he was brought back to his seat, at which point the cockpit was informed and the aircraft powered onto the runway, then accelerated and took off, by now 60 minutes late.
At this point I was getting ready to assume my usual flying position of eyes closed and dozing when the cockpit door flew wide open. This permitted those of us with an aisle seat an uninterrupted view of the “office” of the aircraft. We saw the co-pilot’s arms reaching out to switch switches on or off and generally do flying type things. It was interesting, I must admit to watch the arcane movements off the flight crew taking the ‘plane off. I did wonder what the spinning thing was next to the throttles on the Boeing 737-800. I thought flight decks were all computerised now and fly by wire.
After all that, I was very concerned then about selecting the chicken or the fish.
