air duckin'

Bright pukey yellow. Ummm it doesn't exist but that was the colour of the shirt of the air dukan employees. We experienced our first experience of that experience which experienced the ridiculousness of this sentence. Some of this is fantasy but the ones in quotes (fore fingers bend up and down) are true real live reports of the most amazing and rare decking.

Check in at air deckin' was relatively straightforward but after going through security we were a bit disconcerted to find that our flight 174 which was clearly printed on our ticket as destination Trivandrum was actually heading to Mumbai. Hmmm... maybe it was a short detour. Or maybe a couple of teutonic plates had shifted in that taxi ride. Now you can check in any time you want but you can never leave. Unless of course you're airlifted. That's what an airport after all is meant to be. I digress. You tiger? So here we are waiting sitting in badly stained seats while Kiarna talked to the local dustbin and Luiza drank a coffee she hated.

Waitin'....

Restless feet. Kiarna's wriggling hers too. We found our way to one of those bright yellow people. When do we board? It's not as though we aren't already with all this waiting. titter.

'Flight delayed by 100 mins. 1600 hrs to 1740 hrs.'

The half apologetic half this-always-happens-so-why-did-you-come-so-early-you-dumbcluck statement made me realise an important thing. These guys were really into cutting corners. You have to go and ask them stuff so that they don't have to hire a horrible american accent boom out distorted announcements. Ingenious.

100 mins later we walked towards a shiny new bus. It was Jet airways. we walked past the shiny bus and walked the three mile trek to the airplane. No we didn't. We had transport. In it's past life probably a cattle truck. In it's present life as well. The airplane became visible over the horizon. It was Kingfisher. OUR plane was... well... a bit plain. I mean... it had... good God... PROPELLERS! Those 2 Khaitan fans are going to keep us in the air? Maybe we shouldn't have packed so much stuff in our suitcases.

Luiza and I have a good laugh. It's been a while. Kiarna joins in. It's fake. The laugh. But very sociable and fetching.

'All air deccan personnel to leave the aircraft immediately.'

Woah! They're really scrimping now. So there's no pilot for these 2 fan contraptions? My wife assured me that this wasn't the case. They had to get out in order to push the plane on to the tarmac and then a couple of their cattle trucks pull the plane while it glides into the air and with a good wind we might glide all the way to Kerala. Saves money. good for the environment. can't complain. But as an economizing measure if they asked US to push the plane I would. Promise. Complain I mean.

'Sorry for the delay Ladies and gentlemen, the plane to Goa developed a snag (don't trust these Khaitan fans) and so this plane had to take all the passengers there and so we arrived here late.'

That's how they do it. They actually own only 4 planes. They say they operate from all over the country but these four planes are doing all the work.

'We try and cut costs so we can pass on our savings to you.'

Really kind of you mate. Will it be in cash or property or gold?

'We'll be taking off shortly and then taking a left and at Coimbatore we will take a right and be at Trivandrum'

So we aren't going to 'take off' at all. They're just going to put this cabin on a Volvo bus and drive down. Why else do we have to take left and right and all that? OR as yet another cost saving measure the pilot has no navigator or navigation system. So he has to follow the good old National Highway. Makes sense.

The Khaitan fans did the trick. We're in the air now. We buy a sandwich. I ask for a microscope and a few surgical tools. I need to take the cucumber out. Yes it is THAT small.

Ladies and gentlemens, I hope you have brought your own parachute as we won't be actually landing in Trivandrum. Thank you.