Up-close and Personal

Assalamualaikum

Saya di rumah. Ya rumah saya. Ya di Korea. Malam tadi saya sampai rumah jam 3 pagi. Apakah jenis anak dara di luar rumah sampai jam 3? Jawapannya ialah anak dara yang flight beliau terdelay di sebuah pulau selama beberapa jam. Itulah. Dibagi landing jam 8 sangat tak bersyukur, komplen sana sini. Kan dah. Ambik. Landing jam 11.40. Ambil iktibar dan sila bersyukur ok, Farini?

The flight was ok at the beginning. From Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. I wasn't sleeping at all. Was watching High School Musical 3. Then just when I was fastening my seatbelt on our flight from Hong Kong to Taipei, Moshitta made up a story about the aircraft needing a mechanical engineer for maintenance work right then. Lol. Kata-kata tu doa kan? Tiba-tiba Allah nak makbulkan doa beliau waktu itu, ketika kami taxi di Taipei keluar announcement suruh semua passenger turun because they needed to run a check on the aircraft. I thought I was the one yang misheard. They asked us to wait for approximately 30 minutes before we can board again. Somehow at 4.40 they told us there was a maintenance work going on with the aircraft so they asked us to be back at 5.20 then they will tell us the new boarding time. At 5.20 they said that the new boarding time is 7.00 so we had to be there by 6.30. And when 6.30 came and passed they said that they had to give us a new aircraft so we had to wait till 7.12 for the new aircraft to arrive and we will be ready to depart at 8.10. Phewww~

Itu kali pertama saya didelay kerana aircraft. Kali pertama saya delay adalah sebab cuaca waktu di Malaysia. Ini juga kali pertama merasa terkandas selama lebih kurang 4 jam di suatu tempat yang sangat foreign. We were served with tea, plain water, sprite and a few types of crackers while waiting. I took the plain water and sprite but drank none because of er... some issues. And I didn't eat anything either. And Taiwan International Airport was a bit small for an airport, I think. Hanging at the corridor, I felt more like I was in a shopping mall than an airport. Walaupun terpaksa depart jam 8.10, kali ini saya rasa bersyukur amat. Wah sudah learnt lesson. Saya kata pada diri, at least I am being given a new, in-good-condition aircraft, not a needing-maintenance one. But the rough journey is far from over. When we left Taipei, it was raining.

You know flying in rain isn't really something I fancy. And last night it was terrifying. We hit some turbulence on our way out of Taipei. The aircraft shook violently and there was this one time when it trashed. I felt like my heart stopped beating at one second. The cabin crew was asked to be seated. Azman said he saw a spark of fire. I closed my eyes hoping to sleep through it all. Alhamdulillah it wasn't for long.

It was near midnight when we landed. Customs and baggage claiming need at least an hour. Cathay Pacific provided us with free shuttle bus to our destination so we boarded one to Kodae.

The whole thing left me thinking how much does an airlines company lost when one of its flight was delayed. Think of the food and the buses they had to give us. Tu baru delay a few hours. Camne lak to those yang delayed until the next days.