Getting Here

I have often been on flights where the passengers have celebrated a safe landing by applauding the pilot for his skill in doing his job. This has usually been on package flights full of track-suited skangers, full of San Miguel and heat stroke and who are celebrating the fact that the 10,000 smuggled cigarettes they have hidden in their suitcase have made it safely back to Ireland.

I've never quite understood why certain people, such as Pilots or theatre announcers, get applauded for just doing their job. After all, nobody applauds me for balancing a cash reconciliation or figuring out how to password protect a spreadsheet. Buts that's just another excuse for me to feel sorry about myself, so we'll move on.

Last Tuesday, I had the novel experience of being on a flight where the passengers applauded on take-off. It felt like we had just escaped from a pursuing jeep load of Nazis which had chased us down the runway, or we were 400 celebrating Al Quieda operatives who had successfully eluded airport security (oblivious to the fact that our plan to wipe out 399 imperialist pig dogs was shared by the other 399 passengers on the flight).

We were in fact celebrating the fact that our plane had finally taken-off, just 27 hours behind schedule. Just over a day before we had stood at the end of the runway, engines throttling like the DC-3 at the end of Casablanca, all our romantic farewells left on the apron like Bogart and Bergman, when a 12 year old English girl noticed a piece hanging off the wing. Say what you like about the English education system (teaches them nothing about genocide in Ireland for example) but it does give them enough knowledge to know that a piece of metal hanging off a wing is not a good idea.

We made our lonely way back to the terminal, no doubt the laughing stock of the other 45 planes queuing for take-off in the madhouse that is Heathrow. After a desperate attempt to remedy the situation with sticky tape and some staples, they admitted defeat and bused us to a very nice Hotel in London. My attempt to track down the man who killed my mojo had only made it as far as London. But I would not be deterred. I was determined to make it to Australia, even if it took me as long as Captain Cook. So on Tuesday evening when SQ319 finally dragged it's sorry ass up into the clouds, I too was willing to ignore protocol and joined in the ovation to our glorious Skipper.