Friday, October 12, 2018

Well - THAT was no fun

I have flown between Sarajevo and New York many times. Usually through Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.




There are, as near as I can see, 3 (three) Turkish Airlines.  1) The business class Turkish, which is fabulous. 2) The economy Turkish Airlines, which is pretty good for economy. And then 3) Economy to New York, which is a nightmare.

First that are tons and tons of kids. Usually Orthodox Jewish children. Oh yes, and tons of Orthodox Jewish people, and tons of Muslim people. Now they all get along pretty well on the flight, but it still worries me that any little blown up might turn ugly in a heartbeat.

Yesterday the flight to Istanbul was delayed due to "weather in Sarajevo". Somehow other airlines were able to make it to Sarajevo, but not Turkish.  Okay.  4 hours later - and 2 hours past my connection to New York, the flight left.

We got to Istanbul and parked and this happened!

Doyyy de doyyy
That is a bunch of people hanging out on the tarmac!  "Waiting for the bus to the terminal?" you ask. No, just being idiots. The picture was taken by me FROM the bus. And the gaggle just got bigger. Finally even the driver was pissed and drove off and they had to wait for another bus.

A few hours later, as I border the Airbus 330 (i.e. death plane) for New York I was appalled. You see MY original flight was on their lovely Boeing 777. A wide body wonder. This piece of crap Aribus - well here is a stock photo of it in Turkish colors.



It is a 2 - 4 - 2 configuration. I sat on an inside aisle (pretty much exactly from the angle of this shot) Turns out the aisles are not wide enough for any human to make it through without knocking me. They have special beverage carts for this beast.

I was in 21 D and there was a family in 21 EFG. I try to understand families, I really do. But in this one mom actually but a pillow ON ME to use as a backstop, Dad curled on the other edge and junior a five year old stretched between them like a hammock.

And while this plane looks clean - image it after a 10 hour coach flight with screaming children, people dragging their hajibs over me and some idiot New York across from me constantly doing stretches. About the 8th time he banged me, I said "HEY. Watch it." I figured I could yell at a guy loud enough to make the moms stop hitting me.  He said sorry, but he had no choice trying to confront leg blood clots.

==== ommmmmm  ====

But yes, the work in Sarajevo went great.

AS WE LANDED, deep vein thromboses starting getting his luggage out of the over head.  Repeated requests for him to sit down were ignored. Then he tried to shove ahead of me to get off. In that he was unsuccessful and I did actually say, "Hey, we are all in a hurry here! Back off."

The good news - it was late and traffic was light and I got home quickly.