Airline Travel Tales

When airplanes work, they are great, getting us from A to B in a swish, with many channels of entertainment (forget the food, I am surprised someone hasn't worked out a business model where I can order great food online and they will deliver it to me fresh and hot, past the security just before I board, sorta like Mumbai Dabbawalas). When they dont:

• I was stuck on the tarmac with an engine problem and the pilot says, "Electrons are running around in the computer not listening to us. We are trying to talk to them."
• The other day, the pilot starts the engines, they shut down for some reason, and he announces on the PA, "We will try to switch the engines on in the reverse order and see if that works."
• Recently heard (due to United/Continental merger, the staff are not crosstrained on others' equipments and there is chaos on board during most flights): "We seemed to have keyed in the wrong entertainment code, we have to wait for this movie to finish and start with the new program in your entertainment guide."

Finally, no matter the circumstances, airports are very badly designed.  Hub-and-spoke model sucks, transfers take far too long, instead of bringing airplanes to people, people walk along many spokes, spines, and multiple security lines.  Try Frankfurt transfer! Amsterdam has accepted the horror and has a tiny Rijksmuseum in the airport to distract you.