Thursday, September 4, 2008

To take the plane or not to take the plane...

So last weekend I was in London. I initially went to the UK for work, starting in Manchester and going down to Watford. Then I decided that I would spend the weekend in London to meet with some IESE friends. So I stayed at Vivek's place, not too far from Canary Wharf, which happened to be an old chemical paint company rearranged into pretty nice small flats (well, it is London remember).

So anyway, during the weekend I also had the chance to meet Brian, who is still writing his Japanese guide book... though we did not go to any Japanese restaurant this weekend ! Saturday was awesome. The weather was really great ! So with Vivek we we went to Green Park to enjoy like hundreds of Londoners the nice weather. This was followed by a pizza and a couple of beers in Greenwhich.

Sunday evening, is the time to fly back to Switzerland... My plane was scheduled at 20h30, flying with BA. As I was waiting there, checking the screens, I saw that many planes were announced with delays. So I started to think that the plane I was supposed to take would also have a delay. However, everything seems to work fine. Around 8pm, the gate was announced on the screen and one would not suspect anything wrong...

So I walked to the gate, showed my passport and went into the lounge. No announcement was made by the employees at the gate. So I still thought that everything was going fine. Then after about 45 minutes, they make an announcement that our plane was going to be late due to some technical issues. They were still investigating what these were and would let us know as soon as possible.

Roughly after 1 hour having been in the lounge area, I hear one of this weird message for a plane from easyjet. Unfortunately I do not remember to which city it was going but the message was more or less as follow:

"For passengers still willing to take the plane, please go to Gate number x, for the other ones please check with the company's desk."

mmm... with all these weird accidents lately (in Madrid and in France), this does not sound extremely good...


Back to our plane, the Stewart says that they still do not know what is going on with our plane, that they have called engineers and that they will board us as soon as they know more about it !
10 minutes later, we board into the plane... ouf... I actually was not really looking forward to sleep at the airport !

So everything is fine and we get into the plane... after about 15 minutes, once everyone is on board, the captain stat to speak.

"Sorry for the delay, we had a serious technical issue with the plane. We had to call an engineer since we could not start one of the engines, but now everything seems to be fine and we should be ready to take off shortly."

Whhhaaaaatttttt !!!!!!! You tell me once I am in the plane that you could not start the engine... So now that I cannot get out of the plane I get the news that, actually, one of the two engines of the plane did not seem to work perfectly today... well, I guess I do not have the choice and really have to take this plane now !

6 comments:

ignorant bliss said...

I still think that the true case was that the pilot left the keys to the plane back home!

MujerDivina said...

Que mierda hombre! You say this when I have to take a plane to the states in 2 days? Carajo... What if it will be my last day alive? What if I die a fiery death in France, or swim with the fishes deep in the Atlantic ocean? O my private equity days will be over!!!

Xavi said...

Ohhhh you are now going back to the states... wow, that summer went really quick. Well, have a nice trip and see you in Barca at some point !

MujerDivina said...

Yeah, hope to see you too! I miss our hangouts...

Ciao for now!

NoellieBellie said...

Ecoute, Xavi, I can't believe you didn't tell me you had a blog until now!!! Joder! I will now proceed to link to you, as a good nerdy blogger should. And then I have to go back and read everything from the start! Great! :)

Xavi said...

well, there is not much to read ! I just started this in May........