I can hardly believe it myself, but although I flew for the first time 35 years ago, I still feel the thrill and excitement of an upcoming trip. I think this will remain as long as I live. Getting ready at home, packing, hauling the luggage down to the car and then heading to the airport… At that point I start to calm down a little even though one still has to arrive on time, deposit my better half and the bags at the curb of the departure level and drive the car to the airport employee parking. Luckily, we controllers still have the privilege of being able to leave our wheels when needed in this special parking using a temporary pass. In the early days the fact that I could park free of charge at the airport looked like a big deal with which to show off to my partner and my daughter (and her partner of the moment) but by now it has become commonplace.
The above scenario played out in exactly the same way on the evening before our holiday in Tunisia. I searched out a shady place for my little four-wheeler, gave her an encouraging caress and left her behind for the next seven days. I made it back to my partner who had in the meantime managed to drag the bags into terminal 2B. Once at the check-in desk, my “airport family” feeling can no longer be kept suppressed and I play out the well-informed… a trick that sometimes pays off, sometimes does not. But all in all we usually manage to grab good seats on every flight we take. Next comes my all time favorite among tortures invented for travelers, the security check, something I have the honor of enduring also in my daily professional life. However since I started to put a good face on it all, somehow I pass the test with less pain. There was an exception last year when an alert security guard spotted my airport ID and started to make a fuss… But now I make sure this dangerous “state secret” is safely hidden on the bottom of my bag and nobody seems to care any more.
There is not much to say about the Skycourt, we have discussed this thing quite extensively, the only development is that the car on show has changed and the anti-travel-stress drink Unikum has become more expensive.
The wait before boarding is not one of my favorite occupations. I can’t sit still, I wander around the lounge gaping at things as if I had never been there before. Staring at aircraft hanging on the end of the air-bridge or parked at remote positions, like I have never seen aircraft this close before. Then I suddenly spot the tower in the distance….
There is the tower! – I announce to my partner who looks at me with strange eyes. I swallow and we proceed to make a few “trick” photos and then I start figuring which shift is on duty this day. It is “us”… I take my cell to inform them that the flight to Tunis will have VIPs on board to-day in the person of us. During the ensuing chit-chat I learn that the one hour delay shown on the passenger flight information display will in fact be more like 90 minutes. Mentally I bid good-bye to the much hoped-for sunset pictures…
Finally, boarding! At this point on every trip I sit calmly with my partner on a bench, watching the other passengers milling around and scrambling to the gate as if afraid they will be left behind. Once satisfied with the show, we join the end of the diminishing queue, knowing full well that we will be taken to the aircraft by bus and the last in first out principle applies… whoever boards the bus last will be the first to alight and get to the aircraft door. This way, once again, we are the first to take our seats on board the little Bombardier CRJ-900.
This is my trigger… from here I start telling my better half what to expect. She knows already that at Ferihegy Airport for runway direction we have 13 and 31, so sitting in the aircraft we both already know which direction we will take off in. As the engines start, we have occasion to wonder at how the cheapie passengers, poor souls, trod out on foot to the waiting low-fare aircraft parked next to us. We do not envy them, even though they are lucky this day, no rain to make their boarding process miserable.
Finally taxiing out to runway 13 which means we will not see the wonderful view of Budapest at night. Rolling at a brisk pace, we bid farewell once more to the “towerino”, line up swiftly and in no time at all we are in the air.
Airborne, I decide to behave myself, not least because it is dark and I have no other option than to check out the cabin. I have never flown in a CRJ-900 before. It appeared tiny compared to the Airbus’ I was more familiar with but still we were comfortable in our seats. Getting into the seat was a bit of a drag but we got used to that in no time at all.
There are many reasons I behave myself these day when on board. Among them the sad fact that opportunities to “misbehave” have shrunk considerably in recent years. Take for instance the age old game of whispering to a cabin crew member that I am no ordinary passenger and would really appreciate a visit to the cockpit… In happier times past this worked like magic, in our brave new world all we are allowed to do is sit at attention in our seats… unless nature calls of course. We even used to give a call before departure to the colleagues on duty asking them to inform the captain, if the crew was Hungarian, of the presence of a VIP on board, something that invariably resulted in one of the stews searching us out and whispering the magic words: the captain will be happy to see you in the cockpit. Those nice MALEV times…
Be as it may, I never pass up creating a mini-panic just before landing and limited to my immediate surroundings. When the flaps come out, I say so that people around me can hear it: look, look, the wing is falling apart!
Then I watch the effect and pocket the grateful looks when I explain that there is nothing wrong, it was only the flaps and we will be on the ground momentarily.
Of course I never fail to look at the local tower either… here is the beauty serving Monastir.
There you are. This is what happens when an aerodrome controller suddenly becomes a passenger.
Finally a puzzle: which is the flight to Budapest on this FID?
