travelling adventures

I have a Rachel-travel-story! Well, it's not quite as fun as her's, but it was a small adventure.....

So I got to the Newark airport in NJ four hours early on Monday. A bit more time than I needed, but the next bus that would have taken me there was only two hours early and I thought that might be a bit tight. Turns out I would have had lots of time! Anyway, everything went fine, we boarded, pulled away from the gate, the pilot ran up the engines and then it all went pear-shaped.

One of the engines wouldn't start (I understand that this is necessary to fly across the ocean, so okay). The mechanic said it was the starter, so okay, we have to find another starter. They called JFK airport in New York City which didn't have one and even if they had, it would have taken a long time to get it because by now it was the middle of rush hour. But okay, UPS (at Newark) had one they could give to Delta so the mechanics changed that, after checking that it was the same part because the numers UPS uses are different than the ones from Delta. So fine and dandy, paperwork signed, everything checked and tested and it's only a two hour delay.

But no, there was more fun to be had!

While they were fixing the starter, the reading lights in the rear of the cabin started blinking on and off. The flight attendants tried to reset them, but their switches didn't work so the mechanic had to look at this too. They can't figure out where the control panel is so are on the phone to Atlanta (Delta's home office) trying to figure out how and where to reset them, which circuit to disconnect, etc. This is turning out to be a big problem because the plane isn't allowed to take off for a trans-Atlantic flight if less than 75% of the cabin lights are working. And this circuit is going to disconnect the reading lights of the entire economy class section. (I guess this is why first-class is better?) So anyway they finally figure out which switch to pull so we can fly, but no one in economy has reading lights and the tv's and sound systems don't work because they're on the same circuit. (I never figured out about the 75% thing because there were no lights except the general cabin lights) And this is another two hours later! Let me tell you, it can get very warm and stuffy in a plane with hundreds of passengers on board that have sat on the runway for 4 hours without good air ventilation!

Anyway, then we finally took off and - miracle of miracles - nothing else went wrong! (by this time I was considering if I should get off the plane, I mean, you sort of start to wonder what else can go wrong!) But the rest of the trip went fine and I ended up sleeping for most of it. There was nothing else to do: no movie, no lights to read, my mp3 player battery picked that moment to die....but it turned out okay as I wasn't too tired when I got home.

And this makes my little Mennonite soul happy - for those four hours of inconvenience I got two vouchers! Each one worth $100 off your next flight or 2,000 airmiles. I guess 50 bucks an hour is not a bad salary?