I have made it back to England, it is cold, miserable and dark but I am home and happy. There was a bit of drama on my flight from Miami to Paris which I more than happy to rant about!
I boarded the Miami – Paris flight at 11.40 pm (10.40 pm) Belize time so you can imagine how tired I was, even before we were airborne I had fallen asleep. The guy who sat next to me was a lovely German guy and he woke me up as they were serving food ( I had mentioned that I was hungry just before I fell asleep).
At around 2 am, I decided it was time to get comfortable and really fall asleep. I began to recline my seat and no sooner had I got half way back when I felt the seat jam. I tried again and this time I realised it was not jamming – the man beside me was pushing my seat forward in a rather forceful and aggressive manner!
I turned round and asked him if everything was ok and he said that he is too tall so I can not recline my seat. Now, I am 5ft 10 so I know what it is like to travel as a tall person and all the more reason why I needed to recline my seat. I said I am sorry but I am tired and I need to rest.
I tried to recline it one more time and this time he stopped in again, swore in both French and English and started tapping and pushing the back of my seat.
The German guy next to me woke up and asked if I wanted to swap seats, I said no problem but at the time he had reclined his seat so he was bound to meet the same drama. We decided to call a member of staff instead.
A steward came and I explained to him that we have a slight problem; he tried to talk to the tall man who said that he would only be willing to take an upgrade to Business Class. The steward then told me that it was between me and the tall man. I told him I was not willing to accept that because the the tall man was being aggressive and forceful and was not willing to compromise. The steward went to seek back up and returned with a stewardess.
The stewardess told the tall man that they had found him a seat but she could not guarantee that the person in front would not recline his seat later on during the flight. The tall man refused. The stewardess asked if he was willing to swap places with me because the person in front of me had not reclined his seat either; once again the tall man refused.
Then the stewardess turned to me and asked if I was willing to move and I told her that seeing as the tall man has refused to move and he is the one with the problem I don’t see why I should move. I had already stored half my hand luggage above my head, I had a carrier bag of six light-house beer bottles at my feet and I wasn’t ready to start treking across the plane. I asked her to remind the man that he got on the plane knowing that most passengers on night time flights recline their seats and it is perfectly within their rights to do so. If he felt that he had a specific height condition that made it impossible to sit in normal seats he should have said so at check-in and he could have sat at one of the emergency exit seats.
Thankfully the stewardess agreed with me and she relayed my message to him; he grunted something along the lines of ‘ok, fine’. I reclined my seat and next thing I knew my German friend was tapping me on the shoulder…breakfast was being served!
When we got off the plane, tall man stood up and I was expecting a giant of man….I was shocked to find out that he was no more that 6ft 1…the same height as my German friend!
Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /home3/beginsat/public_html/journal/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 3964
Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /home3/beginsat/public_html/journal/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 3964
Wahu says
You do have some very intersting encounters on flights on land etc, anyway sweetie welcome back and I truly wonder if we shall be seeing you. Talk to you soon. Mingi love and welcome back to the bleak winter- I am sure one person is very, very happy to see you back- aseme! W