MondayMorningMutiny.com

London – Sao Paulo 

Leaving England turned out to be harder than expected..

Not for the farewells, nervous anticipation and general emotion of it all. That was fine. The problem was physical – not with me but with the plane.

I arrived at Heathrow in good time, found the British Airways desk, checked in, found my seat on the plane and waited patiently.

Then I waited patiently some more.

Then some more..

And then a bit more..

6 long hours later, the problem is solved and we get ready to take off, taxiing up the runway and gathering speed.

The plane erupts into a chorus of cheers.

This was short lived when we suddenly we stop and are informed that the technical problem has returned and so the flight will be cancelled and rearranged for the following day.

Nobody cheers.

British Airways arranges for the plane load of tired and disappointed passengers to stay at the Park Inn hotel, whose psychedelia inspired lifts mesmerised my tired eyes with the ever-changing colours of blue to purple to red to yellow to green to blue to purple to red to yellow to green to blue.. Realising that I hadn’t pressed the button for my floor, I quickly did so thus breaking the hypnotic cycle of colours.

In times of inconvenience en masse there arises a kind of camaraderie as would be strangers suddenly have something in common. However there is always one who spoils it.

Stepping up to the challenge this time was a middle aged businessman with obviously high maintenance eyebrows. Myself and another man were talking to the BA lady who had been given the thankless task of sorting out the mayhem and endless queries. As we spoke the businessman strides in between us and demands to know whether flights need to be re-booked. We had already been told that our new flight for tomorrow did not and the BA spokeswoman reiterated this. The man gets irate, his no doubt once bushy eyebrows lowering then pompously shouts just loud enough for all around to hear, ‘There is a world other than this flight you know. Other flights DO need to be re-booked.’ Having nothing better to do and not being particularly fond of arrogant bullies I decide to intervene, ‘Excuse me, you do know that this gentleman here and I were in the middle of talking when you interrupted? Following your argument, there is a world apart from you as well. Besides, why ask a question if you already know the answer? You are wasting everyone’s time and making matters worse.’

I wanted to suggest that a more effective use of his time might be some essential eyebrow care but thought better of it and kept quiet. The man had no reply and stomped off in a huff. A victory for good manners made all the sweeter by the fact that I wasn’t even particularly bothered and was just killing time.

Back at Heathrow at 7am the next day with a severe case of deja vu,  the whole process was repeated, with less disgruntlement as there are no problems today. On the plane I somehow have all 3 seats to myself and take full advantage of the new on-demand entertainment system and free wine. We successfully take off and arrive in Sao Paulo 12 hours later.

I have a suspicion that this will not be last time getting somewhere will not run smoothly as planned!

This entry was posted on February 18, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Brazil, England. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.