11 April 2001
Hong Kong SAR, China
====================
I checked in right behind the Manila misconnects and collected my keycard for room 5103, my vouchers for breakfast and lunch and a printed sheet outlining the facilities available at the hotel. The business center was allegedly open 24 hours, but on inquiry that was only to "receive faxes" - otherwise it was a 7am to 10pm thing. Whatever.

The room itself was decent with the usual hotel accoutrements. Unfortunately, the telephone had a ridiculous surcharge for every calling card call made, so I decided to wander back to the airport and use a payphone. I explored the airport for a while under the watchful eyes of the night security folks and finally headed back to my room where I proceeded to shower and crash around 2am.

At 530am my phone rang and I groggily answered. Evidently someone at CX had mixed me up with the MNL pax and had asked the hotel to set my wakeup call accordingly. Ugh. Back to sleep. At 615am, the phone rang again. This time it was CX staff at the counter calling to confirm that I wasn't headed to Manila. Once again, I replied in the negative. Back to sleep. At 830am, the phone rang yet again. This was the CX ticket office asking me to stop by their counter during the morning so they could confirm my rebooking. I just gave up on sleep now and decided to head down for breakfast. A wise decision in retrospect.

The CX vouchers I received for meals entitled me to the breakfast and lunch buffets in the coffee shop on the lowest level. I was pleasantly surprised to find an amazingly lavish spread laid out there. It made me realize that I hadn't eaten a REAL meal since I left Atlanta almost 48 hours earlier. Accordingly, I pigged out on the smoked salmon and the dim sum with a little bit of everything else as well. I headed back to the room around 10am and grabbed a couple more hours of shuteye.

At 1245pm, I headed out to the CX service desk at the airport. The supervisor there was very polite, but was also adamant that the ticket endorsement would be enough for UA. I asked her to call over and check, which she reluctantly proceeded to do. Unfortunately, the conversation was conducted in rapid fire Chinese so I had to take her word that UA had approved it.

Back to the hotel around 130pm and headed back down for lunch this time. The spread was not quite as lavish as breakfast, but featured an interesting seafood bar with oysters, shrimp and crabs. I partook of the repast and then decided to head to the business center and check my email.

The business center was quite efficient and quoted me HK$25 per 10 minutes of internet use. I spent 30 minutes checking various things, noting with interest an email from my mom telling me that my dad's flight pattern had changed and that he would now be operating DEL-BOM on AI 754 which left 45 minutes after the UA flight got into DEL. A perfect connection!

I checked out of the hotel around 6pm and headed over to the UA counters where I tried to check-in for the 930pm flight to DEL. The agent took one look at my endorsed award ticket and immediately told me that it would not be acceptable. I was livid at this point and stormed back over to Cathay and demanded a supervisor. The supervisor was very apologetic and immediately wrote out a manual FIM. Finally! What was so hard about getting this done last night?

Headed back to UA and this time my documents met the scrutiny of the check-in agent. I asked about the possibility of using miles to upgrade to Business Class since the FIM is ticketed as a full Y class fare, but she said that upgrades were not available. I figured that maybe the flight was full, so I didn't press the issue. I WAS assigned seat 35H, which is the exit row seat in Economy Plus, so I figured it wouldn't be too bad for the 6 hour hop over to DEL.

11 April 2001
UA 1
Boeing 747-400
Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok to Delhi Indira Gandhi International
===========================================================

I headed through passport control, then security and finally emerged by the Reuters and Samsung Internet lounges. I spent a happy hour or so there and then headed down to the concourse level. The place was bustling with a variety of flights to places whose names I could barely pronounce and I watched in amazement as airlines ranging from Qantas to DragonAir took to the skies. I decided to pass on the train and walk down to gate 67 which took me a solid 20 minutes.

I arrived at the gate right before 9pm and was surprised to find only a handful of folks waiting for the flight. I asked the agent what was up and she replied that there were only 53 passengers booked and this was typical of the loads so far. I now thought back to my denied upgrade and enquired why it was denied, since Business Class was obviously not full. Evidently, the route restrictions do not allow upgrades for HKG-DEL standalone segments unless they are either purchased in the United States or have an additional international tag segment. Since I did not qualify on either count, I was banished behind the curtain. C'est la vie.

Boarding commenced on time and everyone was seated within minutes. Once again, my row had no movable armrests, but the ample legroom more than made up for it. The aircraft was ship 8197 and she was fresh out of a "C" check, equipped with the new Economy Plus seating in D zone, but no Personal TVs in coach. Our crew today were HKG based with a few DEL crew who are Indian nationals that are technically HKG based but fly the DEL route exclusively.

As soon as we pushed back, the live safety demos were conducted although the crew seemed kinda distracted while going through the motions. Announcements were in English, Hindi (which was excellent) and Chinese. As we taxied out, I chatted with one of the FAs on the jumpseat in front of me. Somehow the topic of the merger came up and we wound up discussing union matters. She seemed disturbed at my apparent familiarity with the situation and repeatedly asked me if I was associated with management. I denied it, but she said that she would rather not take the chance and steered the conversation elsewhere.

We were airborne soon enough and the announced flying time was 5:41. I tried to find channel 9, but was informed that it was temporarily deactivated for flights through Chinese airspace as a result of the Hainan incident. Menu cards were handed out and I was extremely disappointed by the choices. The Indian selection was downright insulting - "Dal Maharani with Lentil Pulao" - which is great as an accompaniment to the meal, but not as the entree itself. It is the cultural equivalent of offering a Peanut Butter sandwich as the main course. Very inappropriate and someone at UA needs to take note of this because I noticed that other Indian passengers were similarly perturbed. I had the opportunity to show this menu to my dad (who is Sr.Manager - Inflight Services at Air India) and even he was shocked by it.

The first movie screened was "Men of Honor" and I watched it as I picked my way through the rubber textured chicken. The poor flight attendant apologized for the bad food but I shrugged it off and settled down for a nap after the movie. I awakened around 3 hrs later over Calcutta due to extremely severe turbulence. The lavatory door kept swinging back and forth and I had to latch it down. A few passengers were using their barf bags, but fortunately the inedible dinner saved me from going that same route.

We descended rapidly and found a smoother cruise at lower altitude, but soon enough we were on final approach. Once again the Hindi announcements were excellent, but the poor girl doing the English messed up the local time by 30 minutes. We touched down smooth enough on runway 28 and taxied to gate 11 at the international terminal. I was rather perturbed to only see a single Air India A310 parked there rather than the expected 747 that my dad was due to operate.

Sure enough, as soon as the doors were opened a ground agent asked "passenger Sean Mendis please contact a United agent". They even got my name right - thats a first for India! Dual jetbridges were used for deplaning and I exited from door 1L and identified myself to the agent. He in turn sent me up to the mouth of the jetway where another agent was waiting with a sign displaying my name. Once again I identified myself and was told that Air India Operations had sent a message for me to call the crew hotel before checking in for the BOM flight. That could only mean that my dad's flight was delayed.

I thanked her and headed down the escalator towards passport control and baggage claim. Both immigration and customs at DEL are usually a lot more laid back than BOM, so I was surprised when my passport was given more than a cursory inspection. Anyway, after a few minutes he probably realized that I wasn't public enemy number one and stamped me into the country. My bag was already on the belt, so I loaded it onto a cart and strolled through the green channel into the great wide open.

I was immediately accosted by a multitude of cab drivers offering me ridiculously high rates for a ride into town in their beaten up jalopies. I politely ignored them and took the elevator up to the departures level and tried to locate the Air India duty manager. The flight departure boards were in a total state of disarray. Of the three that I looked at, one showed AI 754 rescheduled to 730am, another showed it delayed till 10am and a third said it was NOW BOARDING for a 130am departure complete with flashing green lights. Welcome to India!

I finally located the manager and he informed me that the aircraft assigned for the flight was still on the ground in BOM and would operate AI 755 BOM-DXB to return as AI 754 DXB-DEL-BOM. With three hours flight time each way to Dubai, the earliest we could be leaving was 9am. However, AI 852 would be arriving from Muscat around 4am with a 5am departure to BOM - and I could take that if I preferred. I called my dad at his hotel and he told me that his crew were operating on a tentative 730am departure for 754, but that seemed very unlikely now. He advised me to grab a cab and go crash with him. I could then ride in with the crew whenever 754 was ready to leave. That made sense, so I headed back down to arrivals and made my way to the prepaid taxi counter.

12 April 2001
New Delhi, India
=================

The prepaid taxi counter is the only way to leave an Indian airport using public transportation with most of your limbs intact and without a second mortgage on your house. The system is very logical - you pay a flat rate to your destination plus a small service charge to the counter and they give you a voucher to pay the driver. The driver then takes the voucher to a counter (there are several around the city) and collects his fare. This ensures that the drivers use the quickest way to get you to your destination rather than the traditional detour via Nepal.

My fare to the hotel came to Rs.180 (US$4) and my assigned cab was a very rickety 1960s vintage Hindustan Ambassador with a sleepy driver and an odometer that had died an early death if its frozen readout of 00324 was to be believed. We rattled away in the general direction of downtown and the twin Airbuses of Austrian Airlines and Swissair taxied out with us. There was no traffic on the roads and we reached the hotel in Chanakyapuri within 20 minutes and I headed right up to my dad's suite.

He greeted me and chatted for a while, but then headed back to sleep while I sat in the living room and watched a really crappy movie on HBO. Around 3am, the hotel concierge slipped a note under the door advising that the flight had now been rescheduled for a 905pm departure from DEL. I passed the message on to my dad and then curled up on the couch for some shuteye.

My Canadian visa was expiring in May, so my dad woke me up at 830am and suggested that I get it renewed since the Embassy was right across the street from us and we had the entire day to kill. Excellent idea. I handed the paperwork in and they promised to have it ready by 4pm. We showered, had some coffee in the crew lounge and then headed out to an lunch around 1230pm.

Lunch was at my favorite restaurant in Delhi called "Frontier", which is fortunately located on the first floor of the hotel itself. They serve the most amazing Pathani cuisine and their Raan (roasted lamb marinated in wine) is to die for. We stuffed our faces and headed back up around 130pm. The roles were now reversed as I proceeded to nap while he watched TV. I must've slept really soundly 'cos the next thing I remember it was 530pm and my dad was getting back from the embassy with my passport.

We quickly got ready and headed down to the lobby as the rest of the crew trickled down. A bunch of the old salts recognized me and came over to say hi. There is nothing more embarassing on a flight than when half the Flight Attendants knew you as a baby. Fortunately this was a short segment so I gritted my teeth and made polite conversation. The coach to the airport arrived soon thereafter accompanied by the mandatory armed guard (AI crew are constantly under threat from various extremist groups) and we filed aboard and headed to the airport.

12 April 2001
AI 754A
Boeing 747-237B
Delhi Indira Gandhi International to Mumbai Shivaji International
=================================================================

Just as we arrived at the airport, the heavens opened up and began dumping buckets of unseasonal rain upon the grateful Delhi-ites. This also affected operations at the airport since conditions deteriorated well below CAT II levels. As a result one AI Airbus flight diverted to Ahmedabad, but fortunately AMD cannot handle 747s so our aircraft just kept circling.

The boards at departures were still in the state of disarray from the morning. One of them was showing AI 754 to DUBAI as being indefinitely delayed, another failed to show anything at all and the third had frozen with only the Druk Air flight to Kathmandu and Paro on every line. At the counter, I was informed that the flight was now being designated as AI 754A, with the Alpha designation so as not to confuse it with the next day's flight since it was now running over 20 hrs late. I received my boarding pass for Executive Class to get me through into the sterile departures area (it was booked to only 4 out of 36 seats), but was not given a seat assignment yet.

I completed my customs form (all AI passengers need to complete a customs declaration since AI domestic flights are only tags to international sectors) and handed it over to the customs officer accompanying the flight down to BOM. I had an invitation to the Maharaja Lounge, so I headed up there to wait for the weather to clear and our aircraft to land. The lounge is a poor cousin to the exceptional one in BOM, but it had basic facilities so I relaxed for about an hour with a Coke while I watched the BBC News. Finally, the aircraft touched down about 930pm and our new departure time was set for 1020pm.

I headed out to gate 10 at 945pm and was waved aboard with the request to take any seat I wanted. As I walked down the jetway, I ran into the co-pilot who had just operated the flight in from Dubai trying to console his crying daughter in BOM over a cellphone. Just another day in the life of an airline crew member.

The aircraft today was VT-EFU named "Emperor Krishna Deva Raya". She is the oldest 747 still flying the line for Air India (VT-EDU is older, but she is held in reserve and for charters) but was in remarkably good shape inside. She had been fitted with the new business class seats during her last C check, and I settled in to 5A. The flight attendants immediately fussed all over me, but fortunately the cabin was empty enough that it wasn't too embarrassing.

We taxied out at 1030pm and I managed to spot the Druk Air Bae146 on the tarmac, struggling to control my laughter. We held short of runway 10 for a few minutes as the Singapore Airlines 777 came in and then we were on our way. The announced flying time was 1:36.

Right after takeoff, a standard airline video magazine was screened consisting of the obligatory Frazier episode and some music videos. There was also a full meal service for passengers joining at Delhi. I picked the Seafood Medley with potatoes and it was excellent. After the meal, I headed upstairs to the cockpit and spent a while chatting there until we began our descent.

We touched down on runway 27 at BOM a few minutes after midnight which is the busiest time of day at the international terminal. In addition to us, there were 2 Air India A310s, an A300, two 747-400s and another 747-200. There were also MD11s from Alitalia and Swissair, 767s from Delta, Air Mauritius and South African Airlines, 747s from Singapore Airlines and British Airways, an A340 from Air France and a Northwest DC-10. We taxied past the domestic terminals where 20 odd 737s of Jet Airways were parked for the night and then pulled into remote bay 61 since all the jetways were occupied. The stairs rolled up and I was the first one off through 1L.

Fortunately, the buses to take us back to the terminal hadn't yet arrived, so I had a chance to take a small stroll on the tarmac around the massive 747. The security guys were pretty cool about it as long as I didn't touch anything other than the engine cowlings. It never ceases to amaze me just how breathtaking the aircraft are.

Alas, the buses finally arrived and we piled on board and headed to the terminal. My bag was already on the belt thanks to its priority tags and I loaded it onto a cart. As I headed out into the teeming masses of Mumbai, I reflected on the 5 days it had taken me to come halfway around the world. What a wild ride!