TORONTO TO CHENNAI FLIGHT A YEAR BACK MEMORY - 109

  EXACTLY A YEAR BACK ON THIS VERY  DAY 

My return journey experience on the 12 th of November by the Etihad Air1ways flight from Toronto to Chennai via Abu Dhabi was in no way better than my experience on the outward journey . ( Please refer my BLOGPOST 69 ) . Now, don't get me wrong , it had nothing to do with the Etihad Airways as such but to two totally unrelated matters which came into play  .

First was this Winters Early Snowfall in Ontario , Canada
Toronto had a burst of early snowfall and  a record 14 cms of snowfall on the 11 th of November. It  was the heaviest recorded in the last 8 years for the month of  November for a day  . The periodic cleaning of the runways and the mandatory cleaning of the aircraft wings with an extremely high pressure water spray caused a delay of almost an hour . This is something which is unavoidable and under the circumstances  there is probably very little that anyone could  do to avoid the same .

The second cause  for delay though , was well within us and could easily have been avoided .

Etihad EY 140 is a Toronto to Abu Dhabi direct   13 hours nonstop flight and was scheduled  to depart at 9.50 pm on the 12 th November . The Boeing 777 ER 300 earmarked for the same has a capacity of close to 400 seats and is almost always filled to capacity on most days .  Most if not all are from the  South Asian region belonging to many cities in India , Pakistan , Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who take the connecting flights from Abu Dhabi for their home locations .  Our connecting flight was for Chennai with a transit time of 4 hours which  by all standards is  more than comfortable to catch the connecting flight .

Being a 13 hour flight from Toronto to Abu Dhabi , self and mami had pre booked 2 seats next to the aisle by paying a premium of 25 $ per head .  Secure in the thought of a comfortable seat for the long flight ahead we arrived at the airport at 6.30 pm for the 9.50 pm flight . Baggage check in and security check were over in a jiffy and we  were at Gate 30 for boarding the flight .

As the boarding time drew nearer there were a few aged , disabled and genuinely incapacitated people on wheel chairs but eventually almost 30% of the passengers were on a wheel chair as soon as the boarding time  was announced .

I fail to see this mad rush for the  wheelchair . It is beyond me to attribute a reason for the same . 30 and 40 year olds who on normal days would be burning the stage with their Bhangra , Garba , Dandya or Bharatanatyam were the first to take recourse to the wheelchair . We probably suffer from our old colonial syndrome and expect others to do the dirty work for us . It takes an unduly long time to board passengers on a wheel chair and the task of boarding 150 such passengers ate away almost 2 extra hours . Some of the copassengers looked at me and mami in askance for not opting for the wheelchair option.

 One thing led to another and we had just 30 minutes transit time  left when we reached Abu Dhabi  . We were on the last call for the connecting flight to Chennai after the security check again at Abu Dhabi which is even more elaborate than other airports .

I have had similar experiences in Airports in  other places where our countrymen opt for wheel chair assistance when there is no actual need for the same but 30 % of the total passengers list this time to  board the aircraft  takes the cake .

Will someone shed some light on this mad craze of our countrymen  for Wheel Chairs at Airports .

Note ; I do not grudge or am I against the use of the same where it is genuinely required . My own father was a beneficiary of this service as he had problems moving about because of his knee and joint problems .