It was Christmas season '08, time to keep up the promise I had made to my sister a month ago. I had to make a tuff decision to allocate time for travel as I was 'On-call duty' until 28th December.That's when I was supposed to handover "duty" to my US counterpart. Just as luck would have it, I was bombarded with work for the past few days pre-christmas making my life even more difficult. Also, I had booked my one way train ticket on 30th night from Coimbatore to Chennai. This was done in advance to ensure that I have a blast of a new year eve celebrations with my buddies in Chennai with all the planning & coordination handled by Pradeep and NS.
Due to lack of time and non-availability of a "On-CALL DUTY" backup under current scenario, I decided to take the quickest route to Coimbatore which was by air. Phew, It was my first experience flying and I wanted to make sure it was a well executed plan. I had the option of selecting one of the "Low fare carriers". After much thought, I decided to go for Spice Jet which was by far the cheapest and best option available to me. I had my tickets booked online and got a confirmation which I had to show at the airport. I called up pradeep and asked him abt flight procedures and check in time sortta stuff. Pradeep as the bad boy he is was feeding me with wrong ideas about what people do on planes. Well, I made up my mind to take only the positives of what he said and on 27th evening 4.45 pm I was supposed to rocket through from Chennai airport and land @ coimbatore airport in an hour.
I had my Dad book a call taxi as I wanted to make my first air trip memorable and was ready to shell out a few extra hundred bucks. I reached the airport much before time and went to the counter to get my ticket. The security got a nice look @ my ID card before letting me in which has become a standard security procedure as per my co-passenger. Inside the airport, I was content with some nice sight seeing. I had two good looking gals who came and sat next to me while one of them opened her laptop to show off. The other one was a friend/cousin of some air hostess I guess as she made a call and had a air hostess coming to pick something from her. Well, well well, I have been to spencer, sathyam, citicenter and so many other places but let me tell you guys "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder", the crowds at airport is something unbelievable, truly international specimens. You oughtta see it to believe it.
It was high time that I had my hand baggage checked and screened through a scanning machine. I could see a lot of security personnel at place in the airport may be to ward off any terrorist strikes. I finally boarded the bus which dropped me near the air plane. I got onto a corner window seat which gave me a good view(of both inside & outside) and followed the instructions given by air hostess to tie my seat belt. I made a quick call to pradeep to keep him posted abt the flight developments. There were a total of 3 air hostesses out of which 2 were good looking and they were trying to be really
helpful. I took a few snaps of the plane from inside before switching off my phone. The pilot was doing his flight updates on air traffic and air hostess was educating passengers abt oxygen masks usage in case of emergency and finally we took off.Guys, the best part of flying is the takeoff, it was a superb experience and I could see the whole world shrinking in front of my eyes. Then, we had snacks coming out and that's when I decided to pick one of the air hostesses and ask her for a special favor. No dirty thoughts guys, I called one of them and said I needed a favor, I could see her face turning pink. I was wondering what was running though her mind and before she misunderstood, I tried to clear the air. Since, this was my first plane experience my favor was to have a peep in the cockpit. When she heard out the favor, I could see her relaxing and she responded "sure, may be after we touch down though". It was only a 35 minute flight and I should admit the coimbatore landscape was much green and good looking than Chennai. The Spice jet airbus SG287 finally touched down and I was one of the final few left, so I went to remind the air hostess about the favor she had promised. She was prompt and took me aside to the cockpit and had me introduced to the pilot and co. I asked them if it was OK to take a snap and they were friendly enough and allowed me to take a snap of the cockpit but not themselves as per their policies. Being the gentleman I was, I didn't want to force things my way and took a snap of the cockpit and appreciated the pilot and air hostesses for making my first flight special.
When I got down in CBE airport, I made it a point to get a snap of the "First Plane" that I flew in. All in all, my first flight was an OUT-OF-WORLD rejuvenating experience which I would cherish for quite sometime at least until I fly again. After my sight seeing session @ airport, I have decided that I would try Kingfisher Airlines next time.
