Flight Ordeal From Shanghai

Think u having a bad day!!!Read this…

Disclaimer: It’s a pretty long one read at leisure.

Just thought about sharing my return trip adventure from shanghai to Trivandrum. This was the WORST flight experience till date believe me I had quite a few before also like waiting for 13 hrs for a 1.5 hr flight and all.

Everything was fine until I cleared the security check at the shanghai airport after saying bye bye to my gang there. The flight was supposed to be at gate 34 as per the ticket but on reaching the same I found tat they have changed the same to gate no 26 and as luck wud have it 26 and 34 are two opposite ends of the terminal.

So on route my journey from 34 to 26 I thought let me have some snacks as it will take about 1.5 hrs more to get dinner overboard and decided to use the vending machine nearby. Put in a 10 RMB note and pressed for my favorite Cheetos and promptly got the cash balance back, but where are the cheetos???Seems the cheetos didn’t like me and was half stuck inside. A lot of pushing and prodding from a lot of helpful chinki junta proved in vain and cheetos just dint come out. By tat time I had lost my appetite and decided to wait till onboard dinner. Bingo then came the announcement “Flight blah blah to Mumbai is delayed by one hour “.To the credit of AIR INDIA we were delayed exactly by one hour and were air borne sharp 11 PM.

After a heavy dinner (Seeing veg biriyani after a long time ;)) to my surprise I went to deep sleep. It was to my surprise as usually I don’t get good sleep in journeys. In retrospect I feel god was making me get ready for the next day ordeal. Didnt even know when the flight reached Bangkok and when I opened my eyes we were in Delhi and cabin crew was serving breakfast. A look at the watch I was a happy man as we have covered for quite a bit of lost time and I looked all set to get the connecting flight from Mumbai. Had my breakfast and promptly went back to sleep.

Woke up after about 1.5 hrs and Lo! I am still in Delhi. For a moment I thought my slumber had violated Einstein’s law and I made time wait for me which was soon corrected by the announcement from captain saying tat we are number 5 in the queue and should be air borne in another 15 mins. This made the sleeping mathematician in me work..Calculating the speed of aircraft, taxing time during take off and landing, time fro getting my baggage, immigration clearance, gettting to domestic from international etc etc. I being the eternal optimist thought I will still make it with 20 mins to spare.

After about 1 hour 45 mins I cud see Mumbai below me but no announcement from captain to cabin crew to remain seated as thet usual norm.Kahani Mein Akala twist we crossed Mumbai airport and now we are above Arabian sea.TING! Announcement came we are having some heavy air traffic and so will have to go around in circles till we get clearance from ground. I would have enjoyed the flight over marine drive if I was not time crunched!!

We landed after a 15 mins delay and I still had 45 mins left for my connecting flight. Immigration was done pretty quickly as no other international flight had arrived for the day. Still having hopes of getting the connecting flight I ran to collect my baggage from the belt. I waited, waited and waited finally got the same and the reason for those three "waited" is bcoz I checked in from shanghai my bags were pushed to the last.
After clearing customs I was all set to rush to domestic terminal with 20 mins left. The only hope for me now was if the connecting flight is delayed .With names of all Hindu gods I know I reached the place from where FREE bus service is there to domestic terminal. So wat do u guys think now.I got the bus and flight was delayed and I lived happily thereafter :). No my dear friends this was just like EKTA production kahani Mein Twist Hi Twist Hein.

On reaching the gate from where we need to board the bus I was stopped by a security guard asking me for my tickets and verifying my bags for security seal. Never got the reason why he was checking for the same as all passengers are IN TRANSIT and anyway on reaching domestic airport they will have to go through security check again. Anyway I was a bit lucky here and he asked me to go ahead and wait for the bus. By this time the scheduled departure time of my connecting flight was long over. With nothing to lose and nothing to do but wait for the bus I went back to see what is happening at the gate with our security valla who is doing his duty so diligently.

Overheard there:
Security: ”Y are u trying to fool me showing two days back boarding ticket to me”.
Passenger”Sir in America the time is one day behind us thaz y”.
Security”I don’t know all this please don’t put me in trouble get a taxi and go to airport”

Finally the bus arrived and there were only two passengers who were there to go to the domestic terminal. Then came the bombshell from the driver we will wait till we get enough passengers before we start from there .All my pleas of me having a flight, went to deaf ears. I reached the domestic terminal after another 30 mins and was told that the INDIAN airlines booking office was right there. But as I expected the check in counter was not there but on the third floor. As luck (eh?can I use tat for me after all tat happnd) cud have it I met an INDIAN official there who told that my flight is delayed by 1.5 hrs and new departure time is 1:30 pm. It was already 1' O clock by tat time.

I ran with my trolley of bags to the lift only to see a bunch of grumpy passengers leaving saying tat lift is not working. I needed to check in as soon as possible and didn’t have time to carry my entire luggage till the third floor. Decided to take the risk of leaving my check in bag there and ran with my cabin bag and laptop to the counter. The lady at the counter greeted me with a warm smile and told me tat all the papers for this flight are sent. I told my whole Dukh Bari Kahani and got an assurance from her to try if there is any possibility to accomodate me. She went to the gate to check the same and meantime asked me to get my check in bag. Thanks to a nice gentleman from kingfisher airlines I could carry the big bag all the way up there. The job was not made easy bcoz of the fact tat I was jst recuperating from a shoulder dislocation.

The thought of being in the plane and reaching home time for lunch made me squeeze last ounce of energy and push myself. But the lady at the counter came back saying nothing can be done as the gates are closed. All my pleas went unnoticed thanks to the excellent customer service that she was taught .Sorry cant say it went unnoticed for everything she had one answer:”Contact duty manager”. Seeing that I cant get anything out of her I decided to try my luck at the duty managers cabin. There was long queue in front of the same which made me reconsider my decision and instead I got the ticket validated by one of the staff members so that I can use the same again for next one year.

My next thought was to somehow get another ticket on the same day to Trivandrum and came to know that AIR DECCAN has one to Trivandrum 8 30 in the night. But air deccan operates from terminal 2 and I am currently in terminal one. On giving a call from here they told they have 3 more tickets left on the same. Blocked the same and rushed to the terminal 2 with the help of an auto for which the driver started at 170 bucks and finally was ready for 40 bucks(hmm hardly 5 mins trip.how true time is money!!!).

I didnt have enough money with me but again "luckily" had some dollars which were converted to get the air deccan tickets. The cheapest airliner in Indian skies costed me a kewl 5300 as it was last min booking. After getting the tickets I was all set for taking a much needed rest and was roaming around the terminal looking for a place to rest my bumps.

FLASH!!Am I SEEING it correctly or it it because I am all stressed out. The flight status screen showing ”IC167(MY Flight) security check in progress” Estimated departure time 2:30!!!!!My immediate reaction was to go back and bash up the lady at the counter.

But I didnt have the energy coupled with the the fact tat I already have got another tickets made me resign myself to my fate. If you think that was the end of the story its not ;I am sure if EKTA is reading this she will stop bringing in all those twists in her productions as she would have got up fed up with my twists(taste of her own medicine ;).

The icing on the cake or rather on the pudding, considering my state of mind ,was when the Deccan flight was delayed by 3 hours and I was also asked to pay over weight fees of 1000 bucks as weight limitation is same for even transit passengers.

Finally I reached home 4 AM Saturday morning much to the relief of my parents who were expecting me from 2 PM Friday afternoon.

Looking back the only good thing about the ordeal was it strengthened my weak shoulder muscles :)

PS: I have complained the same to Indian officials yet to hear back anything.