People behave strangely when flights get delayed, me included. The Indigo 8.20pm flight from Delhi to Bangalore was delayed to 9 pm and then to 9.20 pm and then finally took off at 10.20 pm !! The biggest learning is not to take the last flight of any airline. The first flight of Indigo at 6.05 am landed half hour ahead of schedule.
Funny, strange behavior – this guy in an orange TShirt pushes people and gets ahead in the queue as we board the aircraft … Did he think the portion carrying him alone would reach Bangalore sooner ? But this behavior comes out everywhere, while driving, while getting into a bus, train. Moving ahead is a good thing, but there is no need to push people out and muscle your way in. Then this grumpy guy who throws his bag into the overhead baggage bin and then while getting off, pulls it with loads of anger – dude, it won’t make the plane fly faster or land quicker. The best was, he was standing outside at the pickup zone, waiting, after many of us had been picked up. The crowding of the entrance to the bus won’t again make it go faster and the plane won’t leave without them.
I had to endure bad Idlis at Vaango, because I forgot my own lesson that you never eat Idli in North India, only “dhosa” and that’s when I meet him after 23 years and it took me some time to recognize him, maybe the bad Idli impacted my memory ! He was just as relaxed and charismatic as I remember him. He has aged a bit, but still looks as sharp as ever. When I was asked to write about a corporate idol whose position I hoped to reach someday, I had written about him. I met him just once during the NIIT Faculty Development Program dinner in Aug 1989… Yeah the same FDP where I met Venki, my guru ! Am talking of Mr. R.S.Pawar of NIIT. What a strange twist of fate that I meet him on the one day that my favorite airlines delays a flight by two hours 🙁 The result was that I didn’t go and introduce myself and thank him for NIIT and for being such a great role model.
The stupidest thing was Indigo announcing their canned spiel, “being on time is a wonderful thing and to help us do blah blah blah” .. Sure, the spiel is relevant as long as you are on time not when you are terribly delayed :):)
Yesterday I didn’t lose my cool, probably because I was coming from Soni’s funeral and seeing the futility of getting all worked up when I could just go with the flow… After all, a two hour delay is not the end of the world. I used the time to speak to my friends, Krishnan and mom. I infact called Sriman after I landed and managed to catch up. Ofcourse got to meet Seema, Adeeti, my new friend Pixie (Adeeti’s daughter) and Javed as well.
If your flight is delayed, relax and use the time to catch up with people. You really can’t do anything else, because jumping up and down or screaming won’t do much. If you can get onto an earlier flight, do that, if not, just don’t waste energy by shouting, screaming and getting angry.
This reminds me of the scene at Mumbai airport, a few weeks ago. Sachin was playing his last match and there were VVVIP movements. The commotion was worse than what you described in the post here, as a number of airlines’ passengers were expected to board from the same gate.
The entry gate was no less than a fish market, and there were a number of non-Indians witnessing and chuckling at the way we are.
True, such times could be used consturctively. Do you recall, traffic lights in Delhi had “Relax” written on them, a few years ago?