Istanbul, Wednesday, 1999-06-02 07:00 local (Z+3)
Hi, Everybody,
I had thought that I would probably not write any more of these things given my soon-to-be-retired status, my general lack of enthusiasm for what is happening, and my continuing lack of energy. However, this trip has been more bizarre than usual. That, of course, means the problems have been worse than normal. In the airline world, you only talk about the bad. The good is when things proceed in an unremarkable manner, and there is nothing to talk about.
When Tower's crew scheduling called me at home, I agreed to the trip even though I wasn't up to 100% because as originally setup up it would be a low stress event: jumpseat to JFK, ferry to Victorvile, CA, a round trip from there to Killeen, TX—the airfield for Fort Hood—then back to Killeen, then to JFK and be done. All domestic flying, all relatively short legs, with layovers in Victorville at the end of each leg there.
Things fell apart when we got to Killeen. The military cancelled the second Victorville to Killeen leg at the last minute, and we were ordered back to JFK from there. That messed up a few flight attendants who had been so foolish as to leave their bags in Victorville, depending on returning there. I never trust schedules, so I had all my stuff with me. The real problem, though, was the combination of the weather and the military's fueling policies. A thunderstorm moved into the area, and lightning started before we had finished fueling. Fueling takes a while at Killeen because they have only one truck, which has to make numerous trips between their fuel farm and the airplane to fuel a 747. The Army won't fuel when there's lightning within five nautical miles of the field, and at Killeen they carry the policy to the extreme of simply going home until the predicted time the area will be clear of thunderstorms. In this case that was seven hours from the time it started. No amount of reasoning on my part could convince them to finish fueling. I pointed out that at this point, a ferry to JFK, it was a civilian flight and that the civilian world regularly fuels in lightning without problems. However, the military mind-set does not listen to reason when that conflicts with regulation.
What to do, we had two choices: go to a hotel—I refuse to keep a crew standing by on a airplane in such cases—or fly to someplace short of our destination to get more fuel. We needed 100,000 pounds to get to JFK; we had 50,000 on board when the lightning started and they stopped fueling. I talked to New York and they said to go to the hotel. That was a logical decision given the fact that the airplane was not immediately needed and that the landing fee for a 747 typically runs five to ten thousand dollars.
Heavy rain started as we left for the hotel, and when I got to my room I called New York again to tell that that, given the rain and trouble with that airplane's APU that we had previously encountered in heavy rain, I wanted a ground power unit and a huffer at the airplane when we returned to it so we could get started and get out of there even if the APU failed.
We got a legal rest at the hotel and then returned to the aircraft. Guess what, no ground power unit, and no huffer. Now the incredible part. The military had five ground power units on the field. They couldn't get a single one of them to work. Finally, after three hours of their messing around, I threatened to take everybody back to the hotel again—against the wishes of Tower in New York by the way. That caused the army people to get some civilian out of bed in the middle of the night to come out and look at the last ground power unit pulled up to the airplane. He took one look, opened a panel, threw a switch, and the thing worked. He walked away, shaking his head. I caught up with him and asked what in the hell had been the matter. He explained that he had told the military people time and again that there was an internal switch that should be kept in the Automatic rather than the Manual setting, but that, in his words, “These kids get to fucking with these things. They just start throwing switches without thinking.”
Things like that make we wonder how the U.S. military can ever be successful in the field. The reason they can, of course, is that every other country's military is equally or more screwed up.
When we got to New York, crew sched had another simple assignment for me since I was getting there early having not done the Victorville-Killen turn. This time it was to ferry an airplane and a flight attendant crew to Cairo, layover with the flight attendants one night, commercial to Athens, layover a long day, and then bring a load of Kosovo refugees from Athens to New York. This time the trouble started when we showed up at Cairo's International Terminal to commercial on Olympic Airways to Athens. Tower crew sched had provided all seventeen of us with a ticket written on Tower ticket stock for the flight. However, when we finally waded through the Egyptian bureaucracy—arguably even worse than India's—we found that crew sched had failed to reserve the seats and none were available. When we went to call New York to find out what they wanted us to do, we found out that most of the public phones didn't work, and the few operational ones we did find didn't allow international calling. Usually that wouldn't be a problem. AT&T has a local access number in Egypt. However, when we tried that, it was out of service and unfortunately remained so for our entire time in Cairo.
I made a quick decision to get as many of us on the airplane on standby as possible and have the rest go to the hotel. After all, rank has its privileges and I knew that if only one seat became available, yours truly would be in it. It did mean, though, that all of us would have to stay at the airport until the flight departed. At Cairo you have to get to the airport three hours before an international flight—compliments of their bureaucracy—so we waited through that and then through an hour delay. Guess what, none of us got on, so back to the hotel for everybody. I slept all day after calling New York from the hotel—had to direct dial since AT&T was out—and even that took a few tries. The Egyptian phone system is not great.
New York said they'd work on the problem. When I didn't hear from them all day and into the early evening, I started getting nervous and finally got through to them again, only to have the phone answered by Debbie the Doornail, so called because when you talk to her, you may as well be talking to a doornail. She was fired out of one department at Tower for incompetence, but they rehired her when she sued claiming racial discrimination—she's not Caucasian—and, defying all logic, put her in that department where incompetence can cause the most trouble. Debbie said they were still working on the problem, but that she would call back shortly with a solution. About three hours later I got through again. No surprise. I knew she wouldn't call back. She never calls back. Anyway, thankfully another scheduler answered the phone, and informed me that we were scheduled out on Turkish Airlines at 03:00, which meant we had almost no notice to get everybody rounded up. Most of the flight attendants and the first officer had taken off to the pyramids when the first plan fell through, and were still eating a late supper. We finally departed the hotel only two people short. We had thirteen attendants, eleven is the required minimum, so we would still be legal to operate out of Athens even with two missing.
When we had again waded through the bureaucracy to the Turkish counter, they said they had no record of us whatsoever. I immediately asked that they check with their New York office. They did and found out that Tower had missed the flight's close out time for telexed ticket authority, but they got their New York people to send the authorization, and there were seats. We thought we were home free, but then they noticed that Tower had authorized the amount charged by Olympic Airways for a non-stop Cairo to Athens flight, about half the amount Turkish charges for Cairo to Istanbul to Athens, which is the only way they fly to Athens.
What to do? If we missed this flight, the Athens refugee flight would be delayed. That would not be good. The way they're running those flights is to have an empty airplane leave the U.S. with enough fuel to get to Skopje, Macedonia and then to Athens. At Skopje, they load the refugees. The runway there is short, and there's no way to carry enough fuel off it to get anyplace but somewhere close. Tower uses Athens because we have a station there. However, the refugees are not allowed to deplane at Athens while the crew change and fueling takes place. They would have to sit in the airplane until a crew showed up, and after that, the eleven hour flight to JFK still remained.
So, needing to talk to New York, I persuaded the Turkish Air people into letting me use one of their company phones to direct dial Tower crew sched. Unfortunately, the people who make the ticketing arrangements had already gone home. Nachtomi won't pay for anything but a day shift for that function. Crew sched came unglued, but, super good guy that I am—and possibly insane for so doing—I said that I would cover the difference in ticket costs using my personal Visa if they would authorize me to write myself a captain's check to immediately reimburse myself. They gratefully accepted, and I signed a credit card for $5285. Actually, the real reason I did it was to ensure that I get home per schedule. I knew that if we missed that flight, they would probably be able to get another crew to Athens sooner than they could get us there, and that we would probably have to cover what the other crew was doing. That would probably mean I wouldn't get home as planned, and I WANT TO GO HOME!!! I'm still half sick, damn it, and besides, I need to get to the doctor to get the results of the liver biopsy they did on me a week or so back. Jean gave me the technical details of the results that they phoned to her, but I need to see the doctor to get all that interpreted.
Anyway, so here I sit, waiting out another three hours between flights.
This won't get sent until I get home. As soon as I hit the hotel at Athens, it'll be immediately to bed to sleep for the eleven hour jaunt to JFK. I can log on from Athens, but I have to butcher the phone cords in the room and use alligator clips, and I'm not going to take the time.
Everybody have fun. Enjoy summer. Go barefoot, go naked.
Terry