In early June 2
009 a colleague and I had a business trip to Buenos Aires via Air France one week after their AirBus 320 crashed near Brazil. The swine flu epidemic had also just reached Argentina. Now, I’m not a superstitious person, but talk about an inauspicious beginning. At the Buenos Aires airport we were met by officials with thermographic cameras, who were identifying passengers with fevers potentially caused by swine flu. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d pulled us aside, since my colleague and I both felt pretty ill after the 13 hour Paris-Buenos Aires flight, but fortunately we were allowed to disembark.
Our business meetings went well and we passed a pleasant, uneventful week in Buenos Aires. Little did we suspect that the return trip would be far from uneventful . . . and not in a good way.
The day of our return flight, we got to the airport at 4 pm and boarded our plane to Paris, a Boeing 777. While waiting for departure, I finished reading a newspaper and realized that we were still not moving. After an hour, the pilot announced that we were still waiting for lost luggage. Although that seemed innocuous enough, I suddenly had a sinking feeling that things would continue to go wrong. After another 30 minutes the pilot announced that they had found some technical problems with the aircraft and need to fix them. In Paris I was to have had 3 hours to make my connecting flight, Paris-Kiev, so as we continued to wait I started getting nervous about making that flight. Over the next 2 hours the pilot repeated one of the two messages: either we were waiting for the luggage or they were still fixing the plane. The cabin lights were shut off and the technical crew brought lots of projectors and ladders and were doing something under the left wing near the engine.
I like to fix my cars myself, and I remembered the last time it was pretty dark when I had a problem with one of my cars. That time in the dark I just barely managed to fix the engine, but forgot some of my tools in the engine. Now, looking at the technical crew, I got totally nervous and frustrated remembering what had just happened with the Air France plane that had crashed two weeks ago, and my experience fixing cars. After 3 hours waiting in the plane I realized I had missed my connecting flight so there was no point to watching the clock any more.
Finally the pilot announced the following:
“Ladies and gentlemen, our technical crew is unable to fix the oil leaking and to get a spare part will take another 24 hours. However, our technical crew doesn’t consider the problem is serious and therefore we are departing.”
Other passengers on the plane were recalling what had happened to the other AirFrance plane just 2 weeks ago and were quietly praying until the moment the pilot made the announcement. After the pilot’s words half the passengers stood up and ran for the exits, as the plane began taxiing.
As for me, I took a sleeping pill and have no idea how the crew managed to calm the passengers. I had had more than enough excitement for one day, although more was in store for me the next day . . .
I awoke in Paris at 9am and realized that it was my birthday. What a romantic occasion to be in Paris on your birthday you might think. But not I. We missed our connecting flight and headed straight for the Air France office in Charles de Gaulle Airport. The Air France representative tried to get us to Ukraine via Rome but we would have had to have a Schengen visa as the flight is not international. I asked the Air France representative if they could issue us a transit Schengen visa. Taking into account how the trip started, I already knew the result. We were denied a Schengen visa and were locked in a small area for arriving international passengers.
I tried to relax and take it easy. It was still my birthday and I was still in Paris:
We waited all day and after 6 PM the Air France representative said we could go to the business lounge and have a bed there. I was very skeptical that things would get better from then, and I was absolutely right.
Together with other people who had missed their connecting flights that day, we were put into a very long hall. I turned around and saw Iranian women in black chadors who had also missed their flight about to join us. When we were told we could all rest there the Iranian women started loudly praying. As I understood later their religion prohibits them to be in the same room with other men after sunset. I could not sleep the next 8 hours because of their praying. I finally did get on a return flight to Kiev the next day, and absolutely exhausted, arrived home.
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Photos: Wikipedia, Ihor Yuvchenko
