I have come to acknowledge after many years of vagabond voyages, that travel can be stressful. Especially transatlantic air travel.
Granted, I’m not in my twenties, or even thirties anymore, but the uncomfortable seats, the queues, the airborne germs trapped in that ever-so-snug cabin just don’t seem to do it for me like it used to. And then, something extra-ordinary happens to remind me just how unsophisticated the human face of travel can be.
A few days ago I was due to travel from Baltimore to London, when just before take off, the plane fully boarded with passengers, discovered a fault in the cooling system. For four hours we sat on the plane at the terminal while the crew tried to identify and fix the problem. They served us snacks, cocktails and even dinner. Then, amoung the single serving entrees served without any turbulence due to the fact we were at the airport on the ground, they announced we would, in fact, not be travelling that evening. Half eaten meals, tray tables and drinks exploded through the aisles as people scurried to get off the plane as quickly as their sardined-in bodies could move.
Once we disembarked, the terminal was mayhem. Passengers wanted answers and no one on the ground staff know what to do. The good citizens of India on the other end of the 1-800-airways number, there to solve all our travelling needs, had not been informed of the glitch. All parties pointed fingers in any direction other than themselves to try to put an order to the chaos. Peggy, with her BA badge on upside down, told us all about how much better it used to be when the airlines actually cared about their customers. Dan, also of BA acclaim, complained that all the flights had already been oversold and if the people in the call centre couldn’t help, no one could. On and on it went while customers and passengers alike locked horns without solutions. Everyone, except the captain of the plane.
There he stood in his captain’s hat, behind the checkout counter addressing each passenger with kindness, respect and patience. While he hadn’t done anything personally to contribute to the fault, he took responsibility and worked quickly to start finding new flight assignments. He delegated the hotel management to another staff member who took names with pen and paper. Peggy was reassigned from whinge-master to taxi-voucher-lady, and within two hours, we were all on our way somewhere.
I arrived back at my mothers house eleven hours after being dropped off at the airport. The next morning as I proceeded to rebook my flight I reflected on what had occurred the previous evening. Despite the pushing, finger pointing, frustration and anger of some passengers, we all arrived, more or less, in the same situation, with a place to stay and a re-booked flight. How we each arrived into our circumstance, was different.
One of the big questions I used to ask when starting out with my yoga practice was, how much do we let go, and how much do we take control? If we have faith in God, does that mean that we leave it all up to Him or Her, sit back and do nothing to propel change? One of my doctors once said it best when he confided in me ” most of the time, we are doing the best we can to make the best choices at any given moment with the information available at hand”. One way to see it is, it’s God who gives us the time and the choices, and it is up to us to make the choices. If we can let go of the ego and our selfish reasons behind our choices, then it’s also God in each of us who is the decision maker, rather than our small self, the one who often makes decisions for the wrong reasons.
In the end, I chose to sit back and assess the situation at the airport. I chose to ask questions about my options when it was my turn in the queue, and based on that I chose to ring up British Airways and to ensure I had a seat assignment before showing up at an airport in a different city the next day. Even though I was just as upset as the next passenger, I admired and aspired to be like the pilot; I chose to keep calm and travel on.
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