Jennifer travels by plane much more than I do, and I believe that she will post something more about her frequent flying in the near future. However, yesterday I experienced something unique that I wanted to share.
I returned this afternoon from an overnight trip to Mumbai and ICICI headquarters where I had a series of meetings yesterday evening (which went successfully by the way). On my flight yesterday afternoon from Chennai to Mumbai, embarking the plane had been delayed about 20 minutes due to the plane arriving late from it's earlier port. After I and the plane's other passengers had boarded and moments before the plane was to back away from the gate (I was flying an airline that uses gates) a hurried and distraught passenger rushed onto the plane and found his seat near the middle of the aircraft.
As the plane was backing away from the gate, one of the stewardesses (the longest word you can type only using your left-hand on a qwerty keyboard) welcomed everyone aboard and announced that the flight to Mumbai would take approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes. At this announcement, the passenger just mentioned jumped out of his seat and quickly moved to the front of the aircraft saying, "Stop the plane! I'm on the wrong flight!" As we were only a matter of feet from the gate, the stewardess called the cockpit. The plane came to a halt and shortly began slowly inching foward. The passenger sheepishly went back to the middle of the plane, gathered his bag, and made his way back to the front of the plane.
After the plane's door had been opened and the misled passenger had been allowed to exit, I expected to be quickly on our way again. However, this was not to be. In a few minutes five security guards wearing red and white reflective jackets entered the plane and began systematically removing luggage from the overhead bins and asking us, the passengers, to identify which belonged to us. When they finished their questionning, everything returned to normalcy, only we were now 45 minutes behind schedule.
Luckily I had given myself a two-hour window to arrive so I was not late for my meetings.
But I did find it a little disconcerting that a passenger could pass through no less than three people checking his ticket and identification and still end up on the wrong plane.
Has this ever happened to anyone else?
I returned this afternoon from an overnight trip to Mumbai and ICICI headquarters where I had a series of meetings yesterday evening (which went successfully by the way). On my flight yesterday afternoon from Chennai to Mumbai, embarking the plane had been delayed about 20 minutes due to the plane arriving late from it's earlier port. After I and the plane's other passengers had boarded and moments before the plane was to back away from the gate (I was flying an airline that uses gates) a hurried and distraught passenger rushed onto the plane and found his seat near the middle of the aircraft.
As the plane was backing away from the gate, one of the stewardesses (the longest word you can type only using your left-hand on a qwerty keyboard) welcomed everyone aboard and announced that the flight to Mumbai would take approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes. At this announcement, the passenger just mentioned jumped out of his seat and quickly moved to the front of the aircraft saying, "Stop the plane! I'm on the wrong flight!" As we were only a matter of feet from the gate, the stewardess called the cockpit. The plane came to a halt and shortly began slowly inching foward. The passenger sheepishly went back to the middle of the plane, gathered his bag, and made his way back to the front of the plane.
After the plane's door had been opened and the misled passenger had been allowed to exit, I expected to be quickly on our way again. However, this was not to be. In a few minutes five security guards wearing red and white reflective jackets entered the plane and began systematically removing luggage from the overhead bins and asking us, the passengers, to identify which belonged to us. When they finished their questionning, everything returned to normalcy, only we were now 45 minutes behind schedule.
Luckily I had given myself a two-hour window to arrive so I was not late for my meetings.
But I did find it a little disconcerting that a passenger could pass through no less than three people checking his ticket and identification and still end up on the wrong plane.
Has this ever happened to anyone else?
posted by Rock at 4:17 AM
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