Great ground service, twice through airport security in 20 minutes, and a creep onboard
First, the drama (the good, a bit of bad, and a happy ending)
In all my travel, I've never had to encounter a situation as close as this one. I've often had to book multiple tickets just in case travel plans change, and usually I know at least an hour before scheduled departure time, as to which flight I'll be taking. All of that changed, and as it happens ever so often, my assistant had taken the day off, so I was on my own, admin-wise.I was on a business trip to Kolkata (CCU) earlier this week, and was booked to return by an Air India flight scheduled for early evening. However, during the day, Air India both SMS-ed (texted) and called me (nice surprise) to inform me that the flight was delayed by 40 minutes, to 1840 hrs. Which was fine, since the only other option available around that time was an 1830 Indigo flight. I did have a backup ticket with Indigo, but around 4 pm, I decided to cancel the Indigo ticket. I mean, why forego the AI miles when the ticket costs pretty much the same, right?
I reached the airport reasonably in time for the 1840 AI flight, checked in, passed through security, and just settled into the MasterCard lounge, when I received another text from AI - this at 1740 hrs - informing me that the flight had been further delayed to 2130 hrs. Now, that delay was unacceptable, and knowing that I had 5 more minutes to have a crack at the 1830 hrs Indigo flight, I went up to the nearest gate that had Indigo staff manning it, and explained my position as succinctly as I could. 1742 hrs.
Going by the lukewarm response from the chap, I'd reckon Indigo doesn't really want passengers. He tried explaining to me at length, as to how it might be difficult, may not be possible, 45-minutes cut off could lapse before we got to the booking counter, there's a later flight at 1940 hrs, etc. 1750 hrs.
I had to ask him to cut the nonsense (and but for some discretion on my part, would've added a regional stereotype comment as well), get on the phone and speak to the booking counter. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and he was able to ask them to not close bookings. 1751 hrs.
Eventually (and at the time, it seemed like a really long while), he handed me over to another Indigo agent - Mingma - whose customer service attitude was at the other end of the spectrum compared to the first chap! Not only did she have my ticketing done at the counter (1755 hrs) - though I had to backtrack via security - she also helped me cancel my Air India ticket, then took me through security again, and was the final gate agent who checked me on to the flight (! And in true
I suppose this kind of stuff (delays, rescheduling, etc) does happen - more often than I can imagine or have been subjected to. What was totally shocking was the attitude of the first chap. This turned out to be not a very full flight, and so any fare that I paid would've directly added to Indigo's bottomline, or at least cut their losses to some extent on this one flight. Yet, he was making excuses to dissuade me from even making an attempt for the 1830 flight.
Then the really ugly
This makes me sick. To be specific, the creep in 24D made me sick. He had a point-and-shoot digital camera with him, and was liberally taking pictures of the flight attendants, in the belief that he wasn't being watched. I saw him go through at least 15-20 pictures (it is quite possible he had taken many more), with specific focus and zoom on certain parts of the body. He definitely wasn't a professional photographer... clearly, some sort of creep / pervert, taking pictures of FAs right after they passed by. Unfortunately for him, I managed to take a picture of him clicking away - it was done in hurry, so you must pardon the poor quality.
I was about to walk across to him and ask him to stop, when one of the FAs (who had been seeing all of this from behind us) came over to his seat and asked to inspect his camera. I later spoke to that FA. She mentioned that she was going to ask me to turn off my phone camera, when she noticed what exactly it was that I was taking pictures of, and that's what prompted her to confront Mr Creepy. She had also deleted all those pictures he'd taken.
I have a good mind to shame the guy, and so I took some pictures of him, as we were getting off the plane. I thought long and hard if I should or shouldn't post his picture. Here's my decision, though I decided I would protect his identity just a little bit (and obviously, he's not the only one around taking pictures!)
Have you ever had a creep on your flight?
A final word
I don't want to "preach", but I'd like to make a point here. I took the picture, not only because I wanted to write about it, but also out of a sense of giving back some respect to the FAs in particular (practically speaking, in case they wanted to take action against him and needed evidence) and women in general. The FAs are professionals going about their jobs, and because they are women, it doesn't give men the right to treat them with anything except the highest degree of respect and gratitude, for who they are and what they do for us - both in the air and on the ground. It also doesn't make them unwitting and unwilling models to satisfy a pervert's fantasies. Let us respect them, and the work that they do. Please.PS: Do we really need one day of the year to celebrate women, when there are 364 more days there to do the same thing?
Comments
Post a Comment