In which the boarding announcement is a lie, I fend off a young kleptomaniac, and continue to enjoy the thrill of a good takeoff.
MSP to AMS to EDI, that’s my route today. Well, today and tomorrow. Yay redeyes! I had to look up Edinburgh airport’s IATA code at the start of this trip because I’d forgotten it, which is silly really given that it’s one of the easy ones. I used to know damn near all the major airport codes from around the world (misspent post-youth developing database system for aviation fuelling systems).
I don’t really consider myself on holiday proper until the cabin doors have closed and we’ve started to push back from the gate. Well, if I’m being honest, it’s really when the engines power up for takeoff. But I’m getting ahead of things. First, the airport.
I love flying, I just wish it didn’t involve airports. I kinda hate airports. Actually, that’s not true; I hate some airports. JFK is high up there (stay tuned for day 18 or so) ’cause it’s chaotic. Heathrow’s a disaster in a permanent state of “we’re trying to make it not a disaster but we’re never quite getting there”. And O’Hare’s a friggin’ zoo. Minneapolis/St Paul isn’t too bad, but I love the straightforwardness of Denver.
Really, I can manage most airports, just not always the people at airports. And the security theatre, which frequently defies reason (x-raying transparent acrylic balls multiple times to ensure there’s nothing in there; combining all “potentially explosive containing” containers in a single packed bin in the most densley populated part of the airport, etc etc). Today was about as fast and smooth as it could be, though, so I should stop griping.
Having cleared security without fuss, I went to grab some overpriced food before heading to the gate. That was when my airline app informed me that my flight was boarding. 25 mins early. Now, it’s been a few years since I flew internationally, but one thing I’m sure of is that things haven’t gotten better, or faster, or more efficient in the past 36 months. And international flights rarely start boarding on time, let alone early. So I don’t believe it. But, I dutifully check the departures board just in case a KLM miracle has occurred… Huh, ok, the departure board would seem to confirm it. Nope, still not believing it. Then, while waiting for my food, I see a KLM cabin crew saunter past me (OK, the Dutch never saunter, they’re too tall; “strode casually” past me). Yeah, now I /really/ don’t believe it. I arrive at my gate three minutes before scheduled start of boarding. They’re not boarding. Told you.
They started boarding 10 mins late. Told you again.
I’m cheap, and generally don’t fly Delta, so my boarding priority is just shy of “run alongside the taxiing plane and try to hang on”. There’s not many of us left. Among us, however, is a family with a loud and, um, let’s go with “energetic” child. Said child is failing to be wrangled (parents’ perspective) or succeeding in running amok (child and other passengers’ perspective), and makes what I think is going go be a strafing run right past me. You know, in order to maintain distance from the parents who are in somewhat lackluster pursuit.
Nope, I was entirely wrong about that. Little shit heads straight to my underseat carry-on and begins trying to rip the off the distillery pins I have attached to the front. Both hands, going for fistfulls of badges. Now, said little piece of excrement doesn’t know that I have said pins superglued to their backs, so said pissant fails entirely to remove anything before I take a firm grip of his hands and remove them. From my possessions, just to be clear. I opted not to amputate on the first offense. As he seemed to gleefully consider a second offense I warned him off with a smile that would have conveyed enough joviality to be aquitted, but a tone that, should he think back on it, may have him checking the yard before he goes to sleep at night for a few days. The parents, meanwhile, were limply discouraging him from about 10ft away, clearly not sensing the danger (acquittal in the bag), or perhaps briefly contemplating the benefits of one fewer children on their international flight.
The nice lady behind me muttered something to her husband about counting their belongings before getting off the plane, or just following the trail of other peoples’ belongings. We shared a moment.
The remainder of the boarding process went smoothly… Well, almost. There was the one moment, when waiting in the aisle on board the plane, that I leaned against the wall for a moment. Yeah, not so much a wall as the restroom door, which opens inwards. Caught myself pretty quickly, though, neatly avoiding what could’ve been the most epic pratfall in quite some time. The charming flight attendent standing a few feet away failed entirely to stifle her laugh (it was a valiant but doomed effort). I joked that “I found my seat!” but was out matched by her “I think that’s ‘business’ class.”
Well played ma’am, well played 🙂
Settling in to my window seat next to a friendly gent, I’m reminded that I’m not built for planes, or they’re not built for me. If I expand to full shoulder width, I’ll encroach 25% into his space easily. Kevin.zip applied.
Boarding completes a few mins early, the cabin door closes, we taxi, and we take off.
I love take off. No, for real, and not just because it marks the start of the holiday in my mind. I just love the thrill of it.
One moment, you’re just parked at the end of the runway, engines idling, anticipation rising. Then… the engines crank, and you and 250 of your closest complete strangers packed together inside this giant cigar tube are launched at 200mph down a stretch of asphalt straight towards a small local neighborhood, before a branch of physics which no-one on the plane really understands takes over and suddenly you’re in the air and climbing at a truly terrifying rate before thing settle down and you find yourself hurtling 7 miles above the ground at just below the speed of sound, hoping that gravity doesn’t change its mind and that the plane doesn’t run out of dead dinosaur juice.
Take off freaking rocks!
(Now, I should also give landing it’s due. That’s the part where the pilot, who you hope is in a good mood and not looking to end things, points the cigar tube full of people doing Mach 0.9 at the ground, and has 7 miles to confirm that they’re in a generally good and still-wants-to-live kind of mood, before slowing down enough that that particular branch of physics you’ve been relying on for the past 7 hours finally concedes to that Newton guy, and gravity exerts its dominance once again, hopefully somewhere near the target airport; or at least something soft)
And now I just sit and wait. I can’t sleep on planes. I think it’s that I can’t sleep sitting upright. And, no, that 6 degrees of recline doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. I mean, sure, six degrees is huge at Hubble ranges. But it don’t do diddly squat over the 30 inches of my seat back. At least I have a window seat. If I’m lucky, there’ll be aurora over Iceland to look at overnight. [There wasn’t]
Addendum 1: In Flight Flight Tracking
Those little widgets for tracking your flight progress have become a LOT better. I mean the in-flight ones, that run in the screen on the back of the chair in front. Basically it’s a Google Earth hack, but it’s really good. Views from above, to the left of the plane, from a window on the right of the plane, even the cockpit. Handier than the strict flight tracker because it shows the name of the thing or place you’re staring at. My favourite was the cockpit view, which included a simple HUD readout, including altitude, airspeed, etc. Spent more time on that than usual.
Addendum 2: Too Early for Duty Free
Schipol is surprisingly busy at 5:30am, but not busy enough to have the duty free shops open. Had to wait aaaages for them. Had to be at least 6:15am 😉
Addendum: Flight Time vs Luggage Collection Time
Arrived at Edinburgh airport after the 1 hr 10 min flight from Amsterdam. Cleared passport control in about 10 mins, which was amazing as a couple of flights had come in and the line was long. But the automated system was working really well, so, no time at all. Then there was baggage claim. Most of us were ready to risk rising the belt and being smacked in the face by the rubber hangy things just to get to our bags, which we knew /had/ to be just outside the building. 90 minutes. The flight took less time. Our best guess, based on some local knowledge, was that they were understaffed. When understaffed, they unload the plane and pile the incoming luggage to the side. Then they grab the outgoing luggage and load it onto the plane for an on-time-ish departure. Then they take a wee break. Then they think about getting the unloaded luggage to the terminal. Then they decide to do it. Then they take a wee break. Then they actually do it. We were told, after 60 mins, that our luggage should be out in 15 mins. I think they sensed that the already restless natives and non-natives alike were about to go feral. Still took ’em another 30 mins to get it to us.
Addendum 4: Tired Now…
Made it to about 10:00pm local time, about 34 hrs after waking up the previous day in MN. Slept for 12 hours. Just a wee bittie tired, it turns out…