Those of you who know me, know that I travel a lot as part of my job. A few years ago, I was returning home after a trip to the US Navy’s Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Centre (AUTEC) located on Andros Island in the Bahamas. I’d spent a week there observing RCN and RCAF participation in an ASW exercise that was run twice a year in May, and November. My job during the exercise was to observe the performance of the torpedoes, evaluate the tactics, and record data for later analysis. Every time a Canadian ship or aircraft participated in the exercise, I was required to go and observe. There are times when those of us in the CF are forced to make huge sacrifices as part of our vocation….This wasn’t one of those times. The Tiny US Navy Station on Andros Island was surrounded by gorgeous white sand beaches, and boasted five bars, along with great mess facilities and even a Naval Exchange and Commissary. Best of all, it was very inexpensive to send anyone as we only had to pay US Navy rates for food and accommodation. To get out to Andros Island, the US Navy ran a shuttle flight service to and from West Palm Beach Florida. It was at the airport in West Palm Beach that my story really begins. It was a Continental flight, from West Palm Beach (WPB) to Newark. A Boeing 737 as I recall. The scheduled flight time from WPB to Newark was two hours and 20 minutes gate to gate. My first hint that this was not going to be a routine flight was the number of wheelchair passengers waiting to board the aircraft when I arrived at the departure gate. There were 14 wheel chairs lined up by the time I got to the gate. As I looked around the departure lounge, I noticed that out of the approximately 128 passengers waiting for the flight, only 13 appeared to be younger than 70. It seemed a little odd, but at that point, the implications of that ratio of elderly to young passengers had not yet sunk in. The aircraft was late arriving. I can’t recall exactly why it was late, but when it finally did arrive, the Gate Agents announced that we would have to expedite the boarding process in order to get the aircraft back on schedule. Looking at the 14 wheelchair passengers lined up by the gate, and calculating in the fact that there were only two gate agents, it became pretty obvious that we didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of expediting the boarding process. While one gate agent checked IDs and scanned boarding passes, the other agent, ( a rather tiny Hispanic woman) began wheeling the wheelchair passengers one at a time from the Gate, down the Bridge and on to the aircraft. By the time she’d escorted her fifth wheelchair, I could tell she was beginning to run out of steam. By the eighth wheelchair passenger, she was soaked in perspiration. By the 12th passenger, she was panting like a first time marathoner at mile 25. The last two passengers could probably have walked to the gate faster than she could push them. Meanwhile, the delay in boarding had created a bit of a kerfuffle with the other remaining passengers. They milled around, confused and unsure why it was taking so long to board the aircraft. The noise level began to rise, and the neat orderly lines of passengers waiting to board by zone number collapsed into complete chaos.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:54:48 +0000
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