Recently, the Mild Wife and I went on a trip to Argentina. There were a few amusing stories that resulted from that trip, but the flight itself led to a bit of amusement. I don't think I'll do all of them in chronological order, but since this is likely to be a series of posts, I'll introduce the trip with the first leg of it: the flight.
There were no direct flights for us to get to our destination, so we had to stop off in Texas for a connecting flight. However, this also meant that we had to take a red-eye, since the flight with the most reasonable arrival time that we could find involved leaving late in the evening. Well, c'est la vie. We've both done it before (on our New York trip, no less), so we know we're capable of it. It's an inconvenience, but as a trade off, you have the whole day in front of you when you land.
Fortunately, there were no problems with our connecting flight, so we got on the plane with no issues. Everything was going according to plan, and we settled in for the long flight. I managed to watch a couple of movies and still doze off for a respectable amount of time, so I was thinking that the travel logistics might work out okay.
However, it was not to be. As we were getting closer to our destination, the captain announced over the loud speaker that visibility was pretty poor, and it might impact our landing. As it turned out, what he meant was that visibility was so poor that no planes were landing or taking off from the airport. None. So, our large plane needed a backup plan because it wasn't allowed to go forward with its original plan (i.e., land).
To their credit, the folks over the speaker told us that the situation was fairly "fluid," but they would let us know what was happening as the situation progressed. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when they announced that our next step would be to land in a different airport in Argentina. As it turned out, our plane did not have enough fuel to simply fly in a holding pattern, so it had to touch down somewhere. That somewhere just wasn't going to be our original destination. There were a few murmurs throughout the cabin when we all heard this (twice, once in English and once in Spanish), but since we had the whole day to recover from this, I wasn't particularly considered.
"Fluid" was a very appropriate word for the situation, though. A few short minutes later, we were told that our plane would instead land in Santiago, Chile. I haven't scrutinized a map to figure out how much shorter or farther that is, but I am positive that that airport is in another country. I had visions of dealing with a customs/immigration nightmare just to get back on a flight to Argentina, and immediately dreaded the upcoming hours.
Fortunately for us, this problem resolved itself by simply having us wait on the plane while it refueled. We simply didn't get off the plane, so there were no Chilean officials or government entities to deal with. I seem to remember this whole process being relatively quick, so perhaps it was only about thirty minutes. Still, it was additional time on our journey. The most amusing part, however ,was that the airline attendants tried to make the most of the situation by serving an additional round of beverages, but they were understandably low on supplies. They served a round of juice and water, but I chuckled as they repeated twice that they only had juice and water.
Eventually, our plane flew right back to our original destination, and we landed perhaps five hours later. Since all the flights had been delayed, the lines to get through customs and immigration were pretty darn big, but at that point, the Mild Wife and I were both just happy to have arrived. When it was all said and done, we eventually arrived in our hotel something like seven hours after we were originally supposed to have landed, just in time to settle in, take a shower, and have a leisurely dinner. Let's just say that we were both in the mood for a drink at that point.
As with many of these points, though, I will end this with a moral of the story. In this case, it's in the title of the post. Landing is hard, guys. Don't take it for granted.
There were no direct flights for us to get to our destination, so we had to stop off in Texas for a connecting flight. However, this also meant that we had to take a red-eye, since the flight with the most reasonable arrival time that we could find involved leaving late in the evening. Well, c'est la vie. We've both done it before (on our New York trip, no less), so we know we're capable of it. It's an inconvenience, but as a trade off, you have the whole day in front of you when you land.
Fortunately, there were no problems with our connecting flight, so we got on the plane with no issues. Everything was going according to plan, and we settled in for the long flight. I managed to watch a couple of movies and still doze off for a respectable amount of time, so I was thinking that the travel logistics might work out okay.
However, it was not to be. As we were getting closer to our destination, the captain announced over the loud speaker that visibility was pretty poor, and it might impact our landing. As it turned out, what he meant was that visibility was so poor that no planes were landing or taking off from the airport. None. So, our large plane needed a backup plan because it wasn't allowed to go forward with its original plan (i.e., land).
To their credit, the folks over the speaker told us that the situation was fairly "fluid," but they would let us know what was happening as the situation progressed. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when they announced that our next step would be to land in a different airport in Argentina. As it turned out, our plane did not have enough fuel to simply fly in a holding pattern, so it had to touch down somewhere. That somewhere just wasn't going to be our original destination. There were a few murmurs throughout the cabin when we all heard this (twice, once in English and once in Spanish), but since we had the whole day to recover from this, I wasn't particularly considered.
"Fluid" was a very appropriate word for the situation, though. A few short minutes later, we were told that our plane would instead land in Santiago, Chile. I haven't scrutinized a map to figure out how much shorter or farther that is, but I am positive that that airport is in another country. I had visions of dealing with a customs/immigration nightmare just to get back on a flight to Argentina, and immediately dreaded the upcoming hours.
Fortunately for us, this problem resolved itself by simply having us wait on the plane while it refueled. We simply didn't get off the plane, so there were no Chilean officials or government entities to deal with. I seem to remember this whole process being relatively quick, so perhaps it was only about thirty minutes. Still, it was additional time on our journey. The most amusing part, however ,was that the airline attendants tried to make the most of the situation by serving an additional round of beverages, but they were understandably low on supplies. They served a round of juice and water, but I chuckled as they repeated twice that they only had juice and water.
Eventually, our plane flew right back to our original destination, and we landed perhaps five hours later. Since all the flights had been delayed, the lines to get through customs and immigration were pretty darn big, but at that point, the Mild Wife and I were both just happy to have arrived. When it was all said and done, we eventually arrived in our hotel something like seven hours after we were originally supposed to have landed, just in time to settle in, take a shower, and have a leisurely dinner. Let's just say that we were both in the mood for a drink at that point.
As with many of these points, though, I will end this with a moral of the story. In this case, it's in the title of the post. Landing is hard, guys. Don't take it for granted.
Comments
Post a Comment