Monday, May 8, 2006

Up up and Away.

Ian is on his way to Ethiopia.

He was picked up Sunday morning about 9:30 a.m. to catch an Ethiopian Air flight to Addis Ababa. The duty driver and expediter brought him to the airport where he checked his bag, received his boarding pass and then was told his flight (coming from Dakar, Senegal with a stop in Abidjan, Ivory Coast) hadn't actually left Dakar yet. The last we heard, the pilot decided there weren't enough people on board and was going to wait for more to show up.
Ian came home.
At 12:15 he was picked up again... there was another flight.
By 2 p.m. he was home again. Sure, there was a plane on the ground, but it was going the other way. And what about rumblings of a flight from Ghana stopping in Lome' before departing to Addis? The pilot decided he didn't want to stop in Lome'.
If you're like us you're wondering about flight plans, and when pilots got the power to decide where and when to stop for passengers, and how many passengers need to be on board before initiating a scheduled flight. Those folks had connecting flights in other countries too, I wonder what they thought waiting around for phantom last minute flyers desperate to get to Ethiopia.
Later yesterday evening, the expediter called and said a flight would leave at 5:30 a.m. this morning. Ian dutifully rose at 4 a.m. and I haven't seen him since.
He's either on his way to Addis or asleep on the luggage carousel.

No comments:

Post a Comment