Pick-A-Day

June 2005
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Fatherland Found

I’m back in Germany, and there really isn’t anything quite like home.

The trip did have its problems and Delta was clearly having an off day.

While waiting to board the plane in Indy, another Delta flight returned to the ground accompanied by several fire trucks. The plane pulled up to the gate and all the passengers got off and got in line to be rebooked.

My flight boarded on time and left the gate a few minutes ahead of schedule. However, the promptness was rewarded with a minor delay on the tarmac in Indianapolis while there was a storm over the Cincinnati Airport. It wasn’t really noticeable in the scheme of things and I rewarded myself by trying some of the region’s famous Gold Star Chili. I’ve finally had Cincinnati style chili and, well, I’ve had it. I suppose if you grew up with it, it becomes an acquired taste, but I didn’t go back to the stand to get a can of it to enjoy at home.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 6:55 with boarding beginning before then. I was surrounded by a group of French Club a Colorado Springs area school. I didn’t ask the obvious question, although the flight attendant did: “Why are you flying to Frankfurt?” The students were well behaved and I spotted a likely homo, who will be cute as soon as the acne clears up. Amazingly the seat next to me was empty.

The captain said that we would be a few minutes behind due to the late arrival of the plane and cargo that needed to be put in the hold, but that it would be minor. Little did we know that the cargo wasn’t a problem, but it was the stopped up toilets. An hour and a half into the delay my good fortunate ran out. A delayed flight from Denver showed up, and the vacant seat was occupied by an academic type on his way to a conference in Germany. He called Delta a Mickey Mouse Airline. He’s gold on United.

He sat down, put on his seat belt and we chatted for a few minutes before the captain announced that in order to fix the problem, we would have to get off the plane. We got off the plane and I thought about buying a candy bar. However, I’d already converted the wallet to the €uro set and I didn’t feel like digging out dollars. Fortunately the delay was brief and we got back on the plane about 15 minutes later.

I believe we left three hours late.

Fortunately the flight attendants were incredibly efficient and instead of dragging the service out, they served the meal and the drinks in one pass, and then I passed out.

The rest of the flight was unremarkable. We arrived in Frankfurt at 12:10, giving me an hour and ten minutes to do the immigration, luggage, customs, bus, and local train dance in order to reach the 13:22 train from Frankfurt to Weimar.

2 comments to Fatherland Found

  • ChrisC

    Delta has been having many issues like this lately. *shrugs* When I was flying back from Key West, we were 2 1/2 hours delayed getting off the island because the weather was bad in Atlanta.

    Everyone at the KW airport was getting moody because they were going to miss their flights. I managed to calm a few of them down by filling them in on the little fact that if WE were being held up because of the weather, odds are THE PLANE they were going to be getting on was being held up somewhere else and would be there when they got to Atlanta.

    I swear, some people just don’t have any logic. 😉

  • John left his position at the Delta affiliate ComAir last month, and he doesn’t miss the company. We personally prefer Northwest, though it seems like they are beginning to stiff their coach passengers: I had my last bag of complimentary braided pretzels on our June 1 DC-9 flight from MSP to ORD (connecting from YVR).

    I look forward to flying Air Canada again in the future, and we’ll definitely try out WestJet.