The Flight and The Politician

I’m a pretty regular airline passenger. I started at a young age and have flown, by myself, more air miles than I care to count. I’ve been back and forth to Colorado and Arizona from Washington as many times as some people take trips to the grocery store from home. I’ve also flown internationally a few times... between Japan and the States and between the UK and the US. Of all the flights I’ve been on... all the whiney kids and crying babies... all the drunken, smelly, obese, shoulder-sleeping seat mates... all the turbulence and gag-inducing food... none of that compares to my first flight from London to San Diego.

I knew as soon as I found my seat that it was going to be an interesting ride. I was the window seat next to an older African man who, as soon as I sat down, began asking me if I could verify that his seat was actually his seat. The woman in front of us had already been having this discussion with him when I walked up, but he apparently did not trust her expertise and asked me. I showed him how to read the ticket, showed him where the seat number was, and just generally reassured him as we took our seats.

Then I showed him how to work the seatbelt.

Relaxeing before takeoff, I put in my headphones and closed my eyes... it was a red-eye flight and I had big plans upon my arrival that I wanted to be rested for.
About 45 seconds into the first song, I feel a ::tap tap:: on my shoulder. I pull out my headphones and, let’s call him The Politician, pointed at his ticket to ask more questions. He wanted to make sure he was on the right flight.
I showed him, again, how to read his ticket, and explained that he couldn’t possibly be on the wrong flight, because they wouldn’t have let him on the plane.
Then he asked where his bags were. He had seen me put my carry-on in the overhead compartment and wanted to know where his stuff was. I was a little confused... asking the obvious “Well, where did you put it?” but he didn’t seem to know.
As a side note... it’s been good practice for me, working at a NATO command, when it comes to understanding broken English. The Politician was obviously not a native English speaker... his accent was very heavy and he was lacking huge chunks of necessary vocabulary and grammatical finesse. I don’t say this as a judgement, because I can’t even ask for the bathroom in another language, I just say it as a fact. Every conversation I mention in regards to this encounter was far from a simple question/answer/statement format and took multiple ‘back-and-forth’s to figure out what exactly was being said.
Anyhow, I determined that he had checked his baggage and spent the better part of the next 20 minutes explaining that checked baggage was under the plane and that no, he couldn’t get it right now. I also had to reassure him that the bags would be waiting for him when we arrived in Denver (my layover) and everything would be okay.

Whew.... now that THAT’S taken care of...

Once off the ground, the flight attendants come around with customs cards for us to fill out before we land. We both get our cards and start filling them out. The Politician doesn’t understand what to do, so I show him his passport and the necessary info, then the fields he has to fill out. He seems a little confused, but appears to grasp the concept so I start filling out my own. As I’m finishing, I look up to check his progress and, sure enough, he has filled out his form EXACTLY... to match mine. He copied my customs form down to the Name, Address, and Passport Number. Apparently he’s me and he’s going to be staying with my friends in San Diego.
I ring the flight attendant (something I NEVER do) so she can bring him a new card and, God bless her, she stays and helps him fill out the whole thing.

I settle in for the flight... put my headphones back in... put on my dorky eye-cover... and recline.

Five minutes later, I feel the familiar ::tap tap:: on my shoulder. Mustering years of customer-service ingrained politeness, I take off my eye cover and take out my headphones to see what he needs.
He would like reassurance he is on the correct flight... again... which I give him. I then show him his own free headphones, and how to put them in, then familiarize him with the touch-screen in front of him and get a movie started for him.
Feeling proud of myself for not getting annoyed, I once more settle in.


::tap tap::


Seriously, it’s like this guy is on a “just when she’s about the fall asleep” timer.

This time he wants to know if we’re almost there. We’re a little over an hour into a good 12 hour flight... we have a short conversation about the distance left to travel and I show him the flight tracking thing with a picture of an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean.
Food comes while we’re having this conversation and we both tuck into our meals...

After food and clean-up I figure I’ll try again. Eye cover on, earphones in, and relax.


::tap tap::


Now it starts to get ugly.

He wants to know if we’re there yet. I give him some more explanation, and he communicates to me that he has an appointment in Denver with his daughter, and he can’t be late, and he needs to be there soon. After 20 minutes of attempted placation, he decides he’s had enough of this airplane business. He wants off.
He asks me where the exit is and if we can stop so he can get off... Yes, I’m serious.
I get a little worried here and try to explain that we are on a plane at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean so No, getting off is not really an option. He starts to get more aggravated and I’m using my most patient and clear means of communication, but he’s fed up. I page the flight attendant again and we both try to calm him down and explain. We’ve teamed up on him, so with two against one he gives us another 45 minutes or so.
We determine this is his first time EVER flying and he’s already flown from Ethiopia to London and is on the second leg of his journey. The nice woman from before comes back and clarifies a little... saying she was on his Ethiopia flight and had already helped him make this connection because, it seems, nobody really explained to this man what flying entailed before putting him on a plane. His daughter in Colorado had bought him the tickets and, apparently, he had no idea how long this trip was actually going to take.

Alas, it seems there is nothing we can do to placate him despite what has now turned into a few HOURS of calm explanations.

He gets so fed up he gets to his feet, hell bent on getting off this plane.
The situation quickly deteriorates.

A large male flight attendant comes back to assist and try to get him back into his seat but he’s not having it. He starts yelling and pleading.

“Make me to suffer NO MORE!”

“I want OFF!”

“I am not a politician. You see me and judge me a pure man! If you judge me pure, then make me to suffer NO MORE!”

“I am a wise man. I am not wise in the ways of this but I am wise in my ways. Many children I have many!! Do not punish me. I am of pure and MAKE ME TO SUFFER NO MORE!”

He was pacing up and down the aisles, pulling out his hair (literally) and getting on his knees to bang his fists on the floor. I felt absolutely horrible for him because he clearly had no idea what was going on.

A few other flight attendants came back to help. At one point one of the pilots even came back. We tried sitting him down and drawing him a diagram of a plane because he didn’t seem to understand we were in the air and, of course, looking out the window didn’t help. I assume he thought we were on a bus or something that could just pull over and he really didn’t understand the time change thing because he was convinced he was late for something. Also, apparently he had some medication he needed to take, but it was in his checked baggage.
One of the flight attendants got out handcuffs and duct tape, but we were all trying very hard to calm him down and communicate with him. Of course, there were a few ‘tough guy’ passengers who were standing up and ready to ‘take him down’ if he went for the door. Absolutely ridiculous if you ask me... some people just want to be seen as a ‘hard ass’.

Finally the Captain said something that got him calmed down a little. We started asking him questions to distract him... Where are you from? How many children do you have? What do you do? Etc etc...

It worked and we got him into a seat about 45 minutes before we landed. Of course there was security waiting for him at the gate, but I’m hoping the just escorted him to his family and he didn’t get in any real trouble.


You can’t make this stuff up...