Another Reason to Think Twice About Flying

Peggy and I are frequent flyers so we probably have fewer misgivings about flying than those who don't fly regularly. But the price of flying currently has us thinking about driving when we can, and even in my job, we are not flying as much because of costs.

Then you see a headline like this today: "Qantas Plane Dives 20,000 Feet After Hole Ripped Mid-Air in Fuselage."

Not the usual thing, but flying is certainly losing its luster.

The Guy in Front of Me

Flying to Portland

Why is it the guy in front of me always has to put his seat back all the way? With my 6'-4'' frame squished into the tiny United space to begin with, my knees start touching the back of the seat in front of me. Then, wham! The guy in front of me slings his seat back. He doesn't inch it back. It seems he waits till the right moment and ... pow, I have to do the splits.

So I look up and down the aisle. I can't see anyone else who has put their seat back. It's always the guy in front of me. People who are 5 feet or shorter and have all kinds of room to spare have people in front of them who keep their seats up the whole way. Children and midgets have people in front of them who keep their seats up the whole way.

Now the guy's dome, with its few wispy hairs on top, is a few inches from my face. What a flight.

All right, enough with the complaining. But flying is just no fun anymore.

At least I'm back in my beloved Oregon for a few days, though most of the time will be spent indoors at the conference and board meeting.

The Fountain of Fountain Hills

The world famous fountain in Fountain Park, Fountain Hills , Arizona reaches a height of 560 feet. I shot this from the air as we were about to land.



I later drove out to Fountain Hills and took this from the ground.



Dick and Melba, this post is for you.

Ice

An AP report titled, "Deadly Ice Storm Grips Heartland," said, "Powerful system blacks out 600,000 homes, grounds flights, closes schools, blamed for 18 deaths." But the worst of it has bypassed our little piece of the Midwest. Although my friend Col. Scott McChrystal had his Delta flight delayed a full day because Delta was unprepared for deicing their planes.

It's still drizzly this morning, but not nearly as cold. All of our ice has melted.

Trip Part 2

Sat. 10-27-07 (past midnight starting the day)

Our Amsterdam-Barcelona flight was even worse. A large group of drunken Spaniards made the 2-hour flight very distasteful for all the other passengers. They were loud and raucous and we couldn’t hear anything. One woman’s high, loud piercing laugh just reverberated through the plane. They didn’t get caught passing their whiskey bottle around till near the end of the flight. But they were even more sauced then and wouldn’t do anything the flight attendants told them to.

This was probably my worse alcohol-affected flight since my flight to Uzbekistan when a rather large drunken Russian stole my missionary buddy Mark Hausfeld’s seat next to me, proceeded to imbibe every bottle of vodka on the plane, and fell asleep on my shoulder. I can still see Mark laughing as he looked back at my predicament. (By this time the Russian was snoring in my ear.)

Getting our luggage in Barcelona and getting to the hotel (Prestige Congress) were further harrowing experiences that left all my patience drained.

It was good to sit down with our friends who we’ll be with, Jim and Sherryl Ford, in the restaurant.

Peg’s already asleep and soon I will be, too.

She’s online, I’m not for some reason. Will post when can but probably not on ship. I’m downloading photos but will wait to add them.

Trip Part 1

(Posting from Spain)

Fri. 10/26/07

[I’ll be doing brief posts as available to fill in later.]

More Adventures in Flying

Sitting in Schipol Airport in Amsterdam just past noon. 7 hours ahead of Springfield time. Our flight from Detroit on NWA was 8 hours so w/ boarding we were on the plane about 9 hours. 3 little kids, about 5, 6 and 7 were sitting together alone in the middle section in the row behind us (we were in 2 seats on the left). One of them kept ringing the call button several times a minute. It lasted the whole flight. Their father ignored them. Passengers, stewards, stewardesses tried to stop it but to no avail. The one time I did fall asleep I was awakened by the boink. They stayed awake all night. When we hit the ground, they fell asleep. What timing. They disrupted the whole plane with nary a peep from the father.

Also had a sick infant, crying a lot, which a doctor treated twice.

The guy in front of me was one of those bozos who slings the seat back. When that happens I have no room at all. In fact, it changed the angle of the in-seat screen so much on the LCD, I couldn’t see the picture clearly. And I still had to give up foot room to the huge box that each row has for the video connections.

Trans-Atlantic flights are seldom fun.

I went through the mini art museum they have here. I’ve done this several times. They always have different displays. Once, I even saw some Rembrandts.

Still more adventures in flying: Delta refuses to locate passenger in wheelchair

Delta's ubiquitous delays reached an all-time low when they stranded a passenger in a wheelchair and were unwilling to assist family members in locating her. Lengthy delays prompted Peggy's attempt to get help for her mother, who was flying alone from Oregon back to Springfield, Missouri, and was using wheelchair assistance to get from place to place. Delta was callous to pleas to help locate her after several failed attempts at cell calls; they outright refused. Wheelchair passengers do not get special attention from Delta ... or even reasonable consideration. A several-hour delay made it very difficult for Peggy's mother, but amid great distress and difficulty, with no consideration from Delta, she managed to make it home. Let's hear it for Delta ... king of the callous airlines.

(The Becker-Posner Blog [http://www.becker-posner-blog.com] reported this on August 12: "The past few years, and especially this summer, has seen loud and frequent complaints against American airlines because of flight delays, cancelled flights, lost baggage, poor on-board service, overbooking, and other problems. Only 68% of airline flights were on time in June, down from 73 % a year ago, and complaints in June rose almost 43% compared with June 2006.")

More adventures in flying: Northwest inconsiderate of Springfield passengers

After debarking our small plane from Memphis, we found ourselves waiting for 45 minutes for our luggage (in our hometown, Springfield, Missouri). Usually this takes minutes. We found out that Northwest had a second flight arriving and they decided to wait for that flight so they could bring all the luggage at once! And our plane was VERY close to the baggage pickup area. Not only did this make no sense, it was incredibly inconsiderate to passengers. Making it even worse was the fact that they did not inform us our baggage would not come until the other plane arrived.

Adventures in flying

Less than a week ago I found myself with delayed and extended flights. Today, as Peggy is supposed to be home from Oregon, she is stuck in Salt Lake City overnight due to plane mechanical problems. She'll lose a whole day, not getting home till tomorrow night. That leaves only Friday and Saturday at home for her before we leave for General Council in Indianapolis on Sunday.