Flight Gone Bad

I am not one of those people who complain about everything. In fact, I might laugh about a situation later, but I rarely complain out loud at the time. I am a dream customer, but yesterday's flight is worth talking about.

Upon arriving at the airport, it was discovered that my flight had moved from the B terminal to E Terminal. No big deal. Just a little more walking. The fact that is was gate E-70 worried me a little bit. I know there has been a lot of work being down at the terminals, but I didn't know they had added so many gates and I feared a long walk. Luckily the gates started at 60 something. Not sure what happened to the rest of the "E" gates, but I was thankful.

I soon found out that we were on a 75 seat jet and not a 737. I guess that was OK. I'm a big guy and I still had an aisle seat. I was carrying my laptop and I kept it, but others gave their bags to the ground crew to stow in the storage compartment. These planes do not have a lot of carry-on space in the cabin. It's still better than checking baggage in.

After a little bit of time, the stewardess made an announcement. She had a couple of carry-on bags in her hand. She announced that they were over weight in the storage compartment and that she needed to find the owner of each bag so they could be stowed in the overhead compartment. They were found and one could sense a little bit of uneasiness into the group. Someone even quipped they hoped we were going to use the "long" runway.

Shortly after everything calmed down, the pilot made an announcement. Apparently we were waiting for four more passengers that were on their way. Everyone started to look around to where these four were going to fit, we already felt crammed in. And of course the whole weight issue was quickly revisited on everyone's mind.

The people showed up and then the Stewardess made a another annoucement. She said that the overhead storage compartments were all full and they were asking if anyone would like to let them place their luggage in "another" compartment. Now the weight issue was the issue of the muffled roar in the plane. Can we fly or not?

"Good afternoon, I am your pilot. Thank Your for flying with us today. If you want to look out the left side of the plane, you will see the number of bags we had to leave behind, conveiently left on the curb. If you recognize one of them as yours, please ask the Stewardess for a claim ticket and we'll get it right out to you on a future flight." that's what I expected to hear, but instead we started out of the gate, stopped for about 20 minutes and then got...

"Good Morning, I am your pilot. Sorry about the delay, but we had an electrical thing that wasn't working so good. Don't know why, but it's working now, so we'll be under way." Yes I am feeling good now. The only good news is that my fear that there was no restroom on the plane was unfounded. There was a "hidden" door behind the stewardess' seat in the back. Whew!!!!

We were all very relieved when the plane did have enough run way to get off the ground. We were left to assume that all the "electrical things" were working.

The flight was about three hours and full of turbulence. It wasn't 't horrible, but about every 15-20 minutes the plane would either raise or fall about 50 feet, or so it felt, and you would loose your place on your reading material. At least it keep everybody awake.

"Hi, this is your captain again. " Oh No. "We are approaching Kansas City..." Kansas City???!?? We're going o St Louis! The look of worry was distributed all the way throughout the plane. " We are locating I-70 and we will follow that to St Louis. On behalf of the crew Thanks for flying with us."

I-70? Isn't that a highway for cars? Maybe I misunderstood and an "I-70" is an electrical thing that is working now that we are near Kansas City. There's no way the plane is following the Highway for navigation. Right???

We eventually "dropped" onto the runway in St Louis and the flight was over. My luggage showed up at the baggage claim and we were on our way to the Hotel.

Glad the worse part of this trip was over...