Control

On printing my boarding pass at the airport in Ahmedabad, I realised that my flight was delayed by an hour and now scheduled to take off at 9:10 p.m. A silver lining was that I was there with some colleagues who had flights to other cities. So, I could get in some informal time with them! 😄

Oddly, though the boarding time was 8:25 p.m., a final call announcement rang out at around 8:25 p.m. itself. After bidding adieu to my colleagues, I entered the plane with a glimmer of hope that the delay might not be much after all! 😅 In a few minutes, boarding was completed and I expected that we'd begin taxiing soon.

9:10 p.m. came and went. A palpable sense of restlessness began to set in with a few passengers questioning the crew about the reason for the delay. A doctor, who was travelling with his wife and 2-year-old son, told the crew that he had surgeries lined up next morning and needed to get home to sleep!

9:40 p.m. - we were still parked in the bay with no sign of reversing out to the runway. By this time, the absence of information from the flight deck had resulted in a number of irate passengers with a couple of them even demanding that they be deplaned and boarded only when the flight was ready to take off! Parents pleaded with the crew to start the food service as their little ones were hungry! Some wondered out loud why they had been made to board if the pilot hadn't been given the go-ahead to take off. The crew had a tough time dealing with the complaints and raised voices.

9:45 p.m. - finally, the captain made an announcement that air traffic control (ATC) hadn't cleared us for take off and that he would share updates as and when more information was available. The passenger next to me told (no one in particular) that his son was a pilot and that there was something fishy about this announcement since planes around us seemed to be flying out! 🛫 Another man, two rows ahead, responded that, even though none of his family members were pilots, there was nothing fishy about this announcement because planes not getting timely clearance is common! 😆

10:05 p.m. - our plane finally made its way to the runway. 

10:25 p.m. - by this time, the plane had been stationary for about 15 minutes and more passengers began losing their cool. Howling babies added to the cacophony with the plane effectively turning into a prison for the tired travellers. An elderly man got into an argument with another man who was taking continuous phone calls and threatened to complain to the crew if he didn't put his phone on airplane mode immediately. The latter lightly replied that they weren't in the air yet which only seemed to further infuriate the former! 😤

10:30 p.m. - the captain informed us that they would take a decision, within the next 5 minutes, on whether to head back to the parking bay and deplane (!!) or take off depending on the orders from ATC. He assured us that they were trying their best and, for the umpteenth time without any word or hint of apology, said "We thank you for your understanding and patience" - rather ironic since, by that time, hardly any passengers seemed to be either understanding or patient! 😖 The announcement was met with groans and anger at the looming possibility of being made to deplane.

10:40 p.m. - apparently, ATC gave the go-ahead as we could hear the engines of the plane revving up; we eventually took off around 10:45 p.m. (over 2.5 hours after the scheduled time of departure) and one could sense a wave of relief rippling through the plane.

10:50 p.m. - once in the air, the captain announced, rather matter-of-factly, that the usual Ahmedabad-Bangalore air route was congested and they were cleared for an air route via Mumbai that would increase the flight time by around 30 minutes. 😑

1:15 a.m. (the next day!) - we, a bunch of exhausted passengers, landed in Bangalore. As I walked out of the bus into the arrival lounge, I saw some of my fellow passengers hounding the airline ground stuff with threats of taking them to the consumer court.

~ o ~ x ~ o ~

In my view, the root cause of the range of emotions experienced by the passengers was an absence of control. A stationary plane brings together a combustible set of ingredients, each of which is outside the locus of control of those on board:

• a relatively cramped area within which ~200 people of all ages and personalities have to sit with no option to walk around and stretch (unless one considers the narrow aisle as a viable option)
• mounting restlessness/anticipation with each passing minute of delay and an absence of information during this delay which compounds the issue
• the inability to impact when the plane would take off (ATC, weather conditions, airport congestion etc. are all factors that the pilot and passengers can do little about)
• inconsiderate behaviour of fellow passengers
• in this instance, hunger (with the delayed schedule followed by quick boarding, dinner plans went for a toss; serving food before take off was against protocol)
• in this instance, the time of the day/night added to the overall helplessness (e.g. cranky sleep-deprived children 😒)

A genetic disorder with limited treatment options, a traffic jam, a promotion denied due to office politics, a heavy downpour washing away your team's hopes of qualifying for the latter stages of a tournament, a tire puncture, a popular dish being sold out at your favourite restaurant, market fluctuations (tariffs or otherwise! 😛), a visa application being rejected even when all documents are in order, a relatively young and healthy family member/friend passing away suddenly, being involved in a road accident due to one reckless driver though you were driving safely, a natural disaster destroying property and lives - all these (and more) illustrate situations where the people involved have no control over either the situation or outcome or both. I believe this urge to be in control stems from we humans knowing, at the back of our minds, that there is so much we cannot control (just like how we know that there is so much we don't know). Consequently, we try to create safe bubbles with predictable routines/structures to feel that sense of control and anything that comes close to upsetting this apple cart is seen with trepidation.

To end on a lighter note - the positive flip side of this Ahmedabad-Bangalore flight was the fertile ground it provided to observe human behaviour stripped of some of its civil filters. That is what led to this post! 😂