Frankfurt, Intercontinental Hotel, Sunday 1995-11-12 13:00 local (Z+1)
A sunny Sunday morning in Frankfurt. Kind of a nice view out the window: the river Main, park land along its banks, trees with leaves turning, very peaceful. Temp is in the 40s and there's a light breeze, cold really when you're walking directly into it, which I was a while ago.
Originally we had a wakeup call set for 11:15. I always set my alarm for 15 minutes before the wakeup call. If things are working properly, that allows me to wake up and check the message light. If it's on, I call and find out the new wake up time. If it's off, I can usually assume I will be getting up, and I climb in the shower, giving myself an extra 15 minutes to get ready over the standard one hour from wake up to pick up. Unfortunately this doesn't work for Air India. They're always late in notifying the crew of a new wake up/pick up time. The change in wake up, which they knew about while we were still sleeping, came after everyone had already responded to the old time. I decided to stay up, but I'll probably regret that when we reach Delhi after having flown all night, and regret it even more when we sit in Delhi for a couple of hours and then have to operate the 2 hour leg to Bombay.
Air India's continual tardiness in everything having to do with this operation may have something to do with the fact that the rank and file Air India employee doesn't really like us doing this subservice. They don't really cooperate and, unless bribed, are very slow to respond. Also, members of India's parliament have been criticizing Air India for using foreign air lines. An article appeared in Bombay's primary newspaper a few days ago noting this and mentioning Tower Air by name. I can tell you that if they decide to kick us out, none of the crew members will lament. It's considered to be the worst duty at Tower Air.
Earlier I walked upstream to the main cathedral here. C.J., remember when were driving down the Rhine and debating whether to take the time to detour to Frankfurt. We decided not to, and since we were interested at the time in things like cathedrals and castles, that was the right decision. The cathedral at Frankfurt is neither large like Cologne nor unique like Rheims. It has no big square in front of it, is hemmed in by office buildings and apartments, and is populated by Japanese tourists and a few German panhandlers and bums sleeping in the corners. They had the bells ringing when I got there, but there were no worshippers in sight. For the most part I suspect German Catholics show up in church three times: to be baptized, married, and buried.
The bells sound kind of nice though, but to be fair, if they are going to allow the bells, they should also allow the Muslim prayer call—and there are thousands of Muslims in Germany, third world types brought in to do the menial tasks. I notice that the hotel cleaning staff here is not German. Neither are most of the McDonald's and Burger King employees.
We had a belligerent drunk on the flight from JFK to Amsterdam. The purser came up and told us the flight attendants were unable to control him. He was yelling at people, using abusive language, throwing things. The captain did the right thing. He sent the flight engineer down to tell the man that if he didn't settle down, he would be arrested on arrival in Amsterdam. He quieted down. Last week Tower Air had a drunk arrested getting off the airplane at Paris Orly. Given the security problems we all face, any of the airport authorities will arrest at a captain's request any individual who has created a problem on a flight, and that is as it should be.
My schedule has changed again. Now, instead of just one trip into Croatia from Bombay, I've got two. After the second one, I'm supposed to go to Paris via Cairo. I've never stopped at Cairo, but no one likes it there that I've talked to. Fortunately it's just a tech stop; we'll never leave the airport. By that time, if the schedule holds, I will have flown 118 hours in the last 30 days. 120 is the max, so on that basis they may let me go home. Unfortunately, I'll only be at at 85 for the calendar month, which means they could still use me for domestic flights (100 max in a calendar month). Also, I'm due for simulator check, overdue actually, November is my grace month. Anyway, even with the possibility of a little domestic work and a sim check, I'm betting I'll be home for Thanksgiving. Also, a lot of these flights take a little more time than is scheduled. That could bump me over the 120 and closer to the 100. Here's hoping!
From memory I had thought that this hotel had modular phones, but I find that they're hard wired, and I removed my tools and alligator clips from my bag to cut down on the weight. So, it may be awhile before this gets sent. There's a business center on the 21st floor that has plug in facilities, but they charge heavily for using it.
Terry