Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Simplifly? No no, SimpliDIE

I flew Air Deccan again this time. It seems like they haven't read my blog from last time's trip. Maybe I should mail Captain Gopinath and tell him his airway sucks big time. I meant the airline, not his nasal pathways.
I got my bag x-rayed before checking in and it was clear. I checked in, and I asked for a seat in the front of the plane. "Free seating" was the reply I got. I started shaking in my boots. My brain had already translated the airport euphemism Free Seating into its real world equivalent of "Every man for himself" That meant a mad rush for seats when boarding began! Seriously, how much does it cost to make a seating plan? How lazy are these bums?!
Not as lazy as the man in charge of the X-Ray machine apparently. When I went for security check-in I was stopped because I had a set of screwdrivers in my bag. I couldn't take that on as hand baggage. Then why wasn't I stopped at the damn entrance?! I would have checked the bag in damn you!
It gets worse. The rush for seats was like the rush at Pothy's during a 50 percent sale. Or Saravana Stores during a 10 percent sale. After struggling to get into the plane, I was able to find a seat that i found "mildly" comfortable. There wasn't a push back! When I asked the flight attendant why there was no push back, she said "because there is no push back". Almost immediately, a warm glow of enlightenment dawned upon me, so bright that the passengers around me had to shield their eyes with their air-sickness bags.

It did not help much, that the pilot was American or something and had an accent only a mutated frog could understand. He was making small talk about possible turbulence and I was making small talk about his corpulence. We might have become good friends someday. Who knows?

The following is the entire conversation between the passenger next to me, and the air hostess when they came to serve "food". I use the term food very loosely here since most of the stuff they served seemed suspicious.

Man: "What do you serve?"
Flight Attendant: "Sir, Juice and Sandwich"
Man: "Do you have orange juice?"
FA: "Yes sir"

(She hands him a Guava Juice at this point)

FA: "Here you go Sir"
Man: "There is no orange juice"
FA: "Yes sir, guava juice"
Man: "...."
Me: "There doesn't seem to be any orange juice."
Man: "Orange juice"
FA: "Yes sir, orange juice"

(She hands him an Orange Juice finally)

FA: "Here's your guava sir."
Man: "...."

I rest my case.

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