SABBATICAL NOTES. 3 FEB 2014 PHLT N1

SABBATICAL NOTES. 3 FEB 2014 PHLT N1 

ONE OF THE SOURCES of fear and trembling in traveling is the unpredictability of movement in the journey. 

Sometimes you are reduced to that unnecessary inertia either on a long queue by the ticket clearance, with only two people manning the ticket holders of economy seats, and the two others are reserved for the business class. 

Such was the case of PAL PR 101 flight last nite, Honolulu Time.

You go to the airport at 8:45 PM of February to beat your 12:10 AM flight (which is February 2 per the Roman Calendar), and by 9:00 PM you have fallen in line. You get past the ticket sentry at 10:30 because the agent said they have a systems problem with the printer which was why they were doing things manually, which was causing the delay.

The ritual of waiting began at 9:00 PM, and ended at 11:30 PM when the business class passengers were called in to embark. So much for the class system here. Business class first. This means the moneyed. Certainly, you are not part of the definition.

By 12:10 AM, February, the first announcement came: No, we cannot fly yet. There is a fuel injection problem, and we have hit 95 percent and we need an hour to work on the remaining percentage.

An hour came, no announcement, and about 0200 AM, another announcement. There is a problem. Second announcement, this.

And then the monastic silence.

And then came the 3rd announcement: we need more time work on the fuel injection issue, da-da-da.

Before 4:00 AM, we finally hit the dark Honolulu skies.

HNL/MNL
2 Feb 2014/3 Feb 2014