Aviation Stories 1

Boeing 707 from Lufthansa in Stuttgart, Germany

In German we say “when jemand eine Reise tut, dann kann er was erleben”. This is so true. In our modern social media world, we read or hear so many stories. Many are tagged as dramas’, which by close observation are not. Often they are just poor planning, poor research of simple naivety.

Flying across countries or oceans, even with the most modern technologies on hand, problems should be expected. That there are so few, is not only amazing, but tells for the professionalism of the industry.

Few?

Yes, looking back of my 54 years and counting, of air travel, I must say that more often than not the trips went without a glitch, regardless of travel class or FF status.
If you are not familiar with the term status, it simply means that airlines reward you, more or less, for loyalty. The more you fly with one airline or one alliance, like Oneworld, Star Alliance, etc., the more ‘points’ you accumulate, which not only give you Frequent Flyer Points, but also Status Points. With enough points you get silver, gold or platinum status and that entitles you to some perks, like lounge access, free seat selection, extra luggage allowance and so on.
Status may also mean that in case of delays or flight cancellations, the airline pulls out all stops to get you to your destination, while the ordinary passenger may have to spend hours in the terminal or sleep on uncomfortable benches.

This is generally worse if you fly LCC (Low Cost Airlines), which do not build so much margins into their flights that they can offer you special service.

So, over the years of flying, I have encountered interesting experiences. Some could fall under travellers nightmare, the other ones are just curious.

Let’s take this one for starters.

Destination Tahiti.
Dream island in the pacific. You may have heard of Gauguin and his pictures of light clothed Polynesian beauties, or that every passenger arriving receives a flower garland, etc.. Tahiti sounds like tropical beaches, palm trees, exotic adventure and beautiful girls.
Plus Tahiti is about as far away you can get from a wintery Germany, where I lived at the time.

By chance, a Swiss travel company opened the route and offered reasonably priced charter flights with hotel. For two weeks, flights + hotel we were asked to pay about, in today’s money, about 2000 USD.
The trip would start in Zurich, Switzerland. The flight was scheduled to land in Gander, Newfoundland, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Papeete.
All economy class, but a bit more generous compared to modern Qantas or US airlines. The aircraft a venerable Boeing 707, which at that time was nearing the pinnacle of its flying career.
So all good, we assembled in Zurich, got all the travel info and some books, which was needed, because there was very limited inflight entertainment. Just an old movie reel projector in the ceiling and a pull down screen in front of the cockpit door. Sound was pumped through plastic tubes into headphones which hurt your ears, in a sound quality, no self respecting teenager from today would accept.
Worse, the flight was also a smoking flight with one side of the cabin designated smoker and separated by the aisle, the other side, pure.
Of course, every time someone walked the aisle, which at a 170 Pax all eco flight, happened often enough, waves of smoke floated across and assaulted the nose and eyes.
But we were young and not spoiled by the modern flight experiences of non-smoking and well ventilated cabins.

Even that we had assembled mid-morning, for whatever reason it was late in the afternoon before we could board the 707, chartered from BOAC. British Overseas Airways Corporation, or as we called it Better On A Camel.
Yes, in those times the alternative interpretation of the airline acronyms, were often very interesting.

Finally we got underway. Down the runway with trails of smoke and sufficient noise from the Rolls Royce engines we got propelled skywards.
Now the story could end here if it would have not been for the gods of aviation, throwing spanners into the works, or let say engine.
We crossed France, Belgium and were nearing the English Channel, when some commotion drew my attention away from the book I was reading. It was already dark outside with the winters had set in early.
I heard the word fire. From the windows one could see trails of white smoke emerging from underneath the wings. Soon followed by the announcement by the captain, that we would be landing in London. No further information I could extract, though my English was limited.
Anyway the aircraft was not going to go up in smoke.

Down we went, relatively quickly without too many turns and soon the runway came into sight, lined with fire trucks and ambulances. The stiff upper lip British Flight Crew pretended everything was normal as we taxied to a stand on the apron and were asked to leave the aircraft with all of our luggage.
Of course not every passenger took this calmly and from the many Germans on board, lots of complaints could be heard.
We got herded into a sterile waiting room and that was it for the time being. 20:00, 21:00, 22:00. We heard rumours that the aircraft would be changed. But as CC’s, cheap charter, nobody deemed to tells us anything.
Finally, we were told we were ready to go. Out on to the cold tarmac and yes, next to our sick aircraft, was another 707. We clambered on board, or at least that was the intention. However a German Lady amongst the passengers had other ideas. “NO, at no account would she get on to the flight”. Not safe. She would not travel, whatsoever.
Now the problem was that her luggage, together with ours, had been loaded. This meant all luggage must be unloaded to find hers. This was not computerised baggage loading, where the ground crew would know exactly where the bags where stowed or at least supposed to be. So we had to wait in the bus until everything was unloaded. Lucky for us, her bags were found quickly and were moved, together with the lady in question to the terminal.

Finally on board.

Same crew, so I wondered if they were all still within their duty time, since they came with the aircraft to Zurich. But at those times things may have been more lax. But soon we got underway. Gander here we come.

The rest of the story is quickly told. At least for the way over. In Gander we were told that, due to strong wind, the flight would not be able to reach Los Angeles without a stop. But, if we were ok and did not have anyone with a heart problem, we could fly higher burning less fuel, where the wind was less, and maybe we could make it. Flying higher meant to reduce the cabin pressure, like placing us on a very high mountain. Sort of.
We got on the way and it was the first time in my life that I got so close to the stars. In fact it was a beautiful flight. Stars above and stars, from the night lit cities below, until I dropped away for a sleep.
In LAX, since we arrived late had to stay on board during refueling before heading to Honolulu. Little do I remember from the rest. Just as we headed south, the blue pacific below, the occasional atoll and endless sky.
After a long, long flight, we made it and got our flower garland and a smile from a lovely Polynesian girl.

Papeete Airport 1982

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