New Year's Eve - 31 Dec 2008

On the 30Dec 2008, I'd a night stop in Amman, Jordan. It was raining that night and also the next day's morning. This hotel that we are staying in Kempinski, it's not too bad. Below are some of the shots I took on the 31st morning. This last day of the year will be one of the more memorable ones. I'd a bad crew working with me, someone who's solely irreponsible and lazy. Never mind that. It's a long day as it's AMM - AUH - DOH - AUH. When we landed in AUH fr AMM, there was fog. With the guests on board, and doors closed, we were delayed for 45 mins. You can imagine how agitated they were.

In this kind of situation, usually it's normal to have some "scenes"on board. So this time is no exception. As it's such a long wait, I told the crew to start with service on the ground. From AUH - DOH, we usually just serve 2 choice of sandwiches. That day it's beef and vegetarian. Crew came to me and told me that a lady wants a cheese sandwich-she can't take beef and she doesn't like vegetarian. I went to her asked her what's the problem. She said she wants other food ie a cheese sandwich. I told her the above choices are the only choices. She said there's a delay, there should be some food offered. I was wondering if the sandwiches is not being offered, then what is food? she said she wants refund for the food, cos she's not getting any. She's travelling with her son. Said that her son is hungry. Told her as much as I would want to get the food for her, the door is CLOSED and even business class doesnt' have cheese sandwich. And told her that our crews even offered her our own sandwich. She said she doesn't want to know if it's the crew's sandwich. BUt I told her IT IS OUR SANDWICH!!!! Somehow she calmed down and just took the crew's sandwiches. Why Lord, why do we have such people?? This is another thing which I don't understand until today. If it's only going to be a 40 mins flight, with 120 passengers on board?what do you expect to be served? Rice?? Pasta??

Then after an hour plus...we were ready to take off. A crew advised a local to put on his shoes cos he's sitting in an emergency Exit. He said he'll put in on when the aircraft takes off. I told him he has to do it NOW. He repeated himself. Then I told him we will not take off cos I will not pass the cabin secure to captain or otherwise he can take another seat down the back. He got pissed, he put on his Cinderella slippers and yelled "Go to Hell"....I went back to my seat...inhaled in a deep breath, and wondered what I was doing here!!!!!.......If it's not because of the delay and New year's eve, I would've just told the Captain to offload him!!!
And thanks to the fog, we were taxiing on the runway for another 45 mins....and by then it's already new year......That's how I celebrated my 2009 new year...... :) All in all, the flight's delayed for 5 hours due to the delay....Reached home at 5am...

Anyway, hope that what's happened it's all in the past, and hope 2009 will be a better year.......Happy New Year 2009 everyone!!