Flying home on Air India Flight 111

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Our Air India Flight 111 back to the United States, a huge Boeing 747, was supposed to leave from Delhi at 6:45 a.m. To make the flight, we had to get up at 2 a.m. As we drove to the airport in the dark, the streets of Delhi were almost deserted. But at the airport itself, throngs of passengers were already jostling each other trying to check in. Apparently, 3 a.m. is like rush hour at the Delhi airport.

It didn't take us very long to check our baggage, but we then had to stand in line for over an hour to get our travel documents stamped. Only about three of the 12 or so people who were supposed to be checking documents were working, and they were understandably overwhelmed. An Indian man in line told me that workers at the airport just walk off the job or go sleep whenever they want to. He explained that the problem is that there is no supervisor and employees can't be fired. A short time later, we saw one of the workers send someone to wake up one of his sleeping co-workers in a separate room. Who knows how many other sleeping workers were in there!

Once we got our documents stamped, we entered an enormous open room where all passengers went to wait before boarding a plane. I had hoped I'd finally be able to get some coffee (or at least tea) there. Wouldn't you know that in the one place in India where I WANTED to find some vendors, there were none! There was a tiny booth that was supposed to sell coffee and tea, but the machine was not working. Oh, how I longed for a Starbucks! Wouldn't you think that someone would take advantage of the entrepreneurial opportunity offered by hundreds of passengers who have been awake for hours to offer some coffee and tea? The toilets were the usual squat toilets (a hole in the ground) where you have to pay a woman 10 rupees (about 20 cents) for toilet paper. My fellow passenger Ina (from Kentucky) and I didn't have any more rupees, so Ina suggested that we give the attendant a roll of toilet paper as payment. Kind of like carrying coals to Newcastle, I know, but the attendant accepted it and kindly let us use the facilities without any additional charge.

At about 6:45 p.m., we all got on the plane. Our flight was full, so those of us in economy class felt a bit like sardines. I was reminded othe commercial where a guy in economy class has to do yoga with his legs behind his head to fit in the seat. And unfortunately, we had to spend 2 hours sitting in the plane before it even left the ground! The reasons for the 2-hour delay, our pilot explained, were that the "necessary paperwork had not been completed" and that "there had been an emergency landing on one of the runways, and the plane had to be towed away." We later saw the plane on the runway with its nose jammed down on the ground -- an apparent landing gear malfunction.

When we finally took off at about 9 a.m., we had been awake for 7 hours. Our sari-clad Indian flight attendants immediately offered us a choice of vegetarian or nonvegetarian breakfast, along with tea or coffee. A strange animated figure on the large screen in the front of the plane showed us how to do exercises to avoid "economy class syndrome," or deep vein thrombosis. The earphones didn't work in my seat, and I wouldn't have enjoyed the Bollywood movies being shown anyway, so I closed the window and took a 3 mg. capsule of melatonin to help me sleep to make the time pass more quickly.

To my great relief, after the 8-hour, 4,169 mile flight to London's Heathrow airport, we got to get off the plane for a little while. We walked about 20 minutes to go through security again, then 20 minutes back. The 3,458-mile trip to JFK Airport in New York took 7 hours and 25 minutes, and we at about 5:30 p.m. Elaine, one of our fellow passengers, exclaimed as we entered the JFK airport," Everything's so neat and clean and orderly!" I think we all shared her sentiments. Glad to be back in the U.S. of A!

Several of us took the Air Train to other terminals to get our connecting flights home. My American Airlines flight got me to Reagan National Airport at around 9:30 p.m., where I was met with a vase of roses and a very warm welcome from my "significant other" Bunny!

Love,
Kerry

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