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Friday, March 4, 2005 |
While in the lounge at the airport yesterday I wrote a letter to the
editor of De Telegraaf, Holland's biggest newspaper, about the delays
at the airport. Just got a call that they actually printed it in
today's paper, with a bold headline and a picture. For those of you who
read Dutch, this is the text:
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Door de hevige sneeuwval ben ik woensdagavond op Schiphol gestrand. Na
urenlang in het vliegtuig gewacht te hebben, meldde de gezagvoerder dat
er niet opgestegen kon worden. Vervelend, maar gezien de
weersomstandigheden begrijpelijk. Wat daarna volgde, was echter minder
begrijpelijk. Op Schiphol heerste een totale chaos: er werd niets
omgeroepen, borden gaven geen uitleg over wat te doen en voor de
transferbalies stonden rijen van honderden mensen. Personeel bij de
gate kon geen informatie geven, en het was duidelijk dat niemand nog
overzicht had op de situatie. Passagiers werd verteld dat men een
hotelkamer zou krijgen, maar dit bleek niet te kloppen. Koffers zouden
op een bagageband aankomen, maar de informatieborden gaven niet aan op
welke. Na lang wachten bleek uiteindelijk dat alle koffers in de kelder
opgeslagen werden. Het was duidelijk dat Schiphol geen goed draaiboek
heeft voor dit soort calamiteiten. Er was niemand die
verantwoordelijkheid nam of kon nemen, en veel medewerkers hadden geen
idee hoe de problemen opgelost konden worden. Schiphol heeft
internationaal een goede reputatie, maar deze blamage past totaal niet
in dat beeld. Shanghai (China), Marc van der Chijs |
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4:02:37 PM 
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Back in Shanghai. Even my suitcase arrived. Got almost 7 hours of sleep
on the plane (a record for me) so am ready to get back to work. Too bad
it[base ']s Friday afternoon already, still so much on my to-do-list.
3:56:17 PM
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It[base ']s amazing how quickly unrelated people become a group. Many people
on the plane spent the night together on the airport and seemed to have
become good friends, laughing and drinking together. When I got back to
the gate today some people already greeted me with [OE]nice to see you
again[base ']. Even some stewardesses greeted me friendly with welcome back.
Although they probably did not like me too much last night when I
wanted to leave the plane right away after the flight was cancelled:
they first wanted to finish serving dinner, but I had had more than
enough of waiting and talked myself out of the plane. Somehow it was
nice to see the same faces again, and hear what they had endured during
the past 24 hours. But now I am ready for some solitude: I managed to
get 3 seats (tip: if you fly economy go into the plane as the very last
person and quickly look where several seats are empty, and just sit
down there) and am going to get some sleep.
3:55:22 PM
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Yes, I made it: I am on the plane back to Shanghai. A delay of 27h40m.
Everything that could go wrong seemed to have gone wrong this time. The
flight was supposed to be cancelled again today (according to the
information screens), but in reality wasn[base ']t. Nobody knew the exact
status of the flight, even the crew did not know. They arrived around
16:00 at the gate, only to find out that there was no plane. Around
18:00 a new plane (from Sao Paulo) arrived. But then there was no
cleaning crew, so we had to wait another hour before the plane was
cleaned. Next thing was that the catering was not on time, so we had to
wait one more hour at the gate. Around 20:00 we were allowed to board
(applause and yells from all passengers, it seemed like someone scored
a winning goal in an imoportant soccer match), but then some passengers
seemed to be missing (probably due to the fact that the flight seemed
to be cancelled again so had gone home). When that was solved there was
no push-back cart to get the aircraft away from the gate. Finally at
20:50 we were ready to go...
3:52:33 PM
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The only good thing about spending many hours on an airport is that
there is always something to see or do, especially on days like this. I
walked up and down between the gate and the business lounge about 10
times over the past day, as the lounge was unable today to tell the
status of the flight. Saw quite some verbal fights between over-tired
passengers and freshly arrived staff at transfer desks and gates. The
staff did not seem to understand the frustration of the passengers.
Also saw a southern European guy getting arrested for trying to travel
on a fake Dutch passport. The worst thing I saw was a guy collapsing,
actually he had already collapsed before I walked by. A medical team
was working on him. A police guy told me that the person probably
swallowed balloons filled with cocaine to smuggle it, but that one had
burst open. The guy seemed quite normal, he was my age and dressed
well. Appearances can betray.
3:51:24 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Marc van der Chijs.
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