H of the house of L: April 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Lost minds, lost carousels

Adapted from "The 25", originally posted here :

Date: 2009 October 10

Location: Terminal 2, (Flughafen) Frankfurt am Main Airport

State: "unorientation"

Something one often forgets is that they might want to pay attention to the public-address announcements : the next gate for a connecting flight, or where to pick up their luggage.

After disembarking the plane from Praha, it wasn't obvious from the signage overhead in the terminal about whether I should have gone to baggage claim D or claim E. Now if I had been paying attention, that would have been an entirely different matter. Nonetheless, I strode boldly and confidently into luggage claim D.

Conclusion: I chose unwisely.

I flagged down one of the luggage porters in the claim area ...

ME : "Entschuldigung ... ich bin gerade von Prag angekommen und ich such ja die richtige Gepäckausgabe."

(Excuse me, I just arrived from Prague and I'm looking for the correct baggage claim.)

HIM : "Welcher Flug?"

(Which flight?)

ME : "Czech Airlines O-K Flugnummer 5-3-6."

He nodded and gave me a look of sympathy ... or ... was that pity ...

HIM : "Sie sind im falschen Bereich. Sie müssen in die Halle-E hingehen Ihr Gepäck abzuholen."

(You're in the wrong area, you've got to pick up your luggage from baggage claim E.)

ME : "Ach, für SCHEISSE ..."

(Come on, you really don't need that translated, do you?)

HIM (another look of sympathy ... or was that pity) : "Kein Problem, bitte gehen Sie draussen zum Information hin und da gibt es ein Angesteller, der Ihnen helfen können wird."

(No problem, just head on out to the Information booth. Tell the clerk there about your situation, and they should be able to help you out.)

ME : "Alles klar. Danke sehr!"

HIM : ... a final look of sympathy ... or was that Schadenfreude ...

I left baggage-claim D and out from the security of airside, and found myself in front of the Information booth. I told the lady there my sob story, complete with my boarding card and passport as visual confirmation. I received another look of sympathy, or maybe this time, she really was taking pity on me. Making a quick decision in her mind, she commanded me to follow her. (Yes, ma'am ...)

We slipped past the crowd of people landside waiting for their loved ones to come out, through two sets of doors into secured airside, and we walked into the correct luggage-claim area E.

I was gobsmacked, but not quite, because I had what little of my mind left to thank her. She was off on her merry way, back to the doldrums of the Information Booth. I didn't bother to look back to see if she was shaking her head ...

Of course, my luggage was out on the carousel within 5 minutes.

After retrieving my baggage and leaving the security-area a second time, my plan was to take the monorail to Terminal 1 and the airport's Regionalbahnhof (regional train station). I wanted to take the suburban rail S-Bahn to downtown Frankfurt's central train station (Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof). A trip downtown : on the one hand, 3 Euro 80 with the S-Bahn - on the other hand, almost 30 Euro for a taxi ...

In the baggage carousel, a stranger walked up to me, asking me in German if I could help him and about how he could get to the Hauptbahnhof.

OK, the first question in my head was: "why are you asking me this question?" There are tons of other people around, which led to the second question : "why are you asking me? Do I have "loser", "sucker", or "Dummkopf" plastered over me?"

Musta been, because mercifully, I kept my piehole shut ...

I found myself helping the poor schmoe, as I even managed to help the guy out auf passable Deutsch. He had to get to Wolfsburg, which was a bit of a schlep, about 300 kilometers from Frankfurt. I asked him to follow me to the Regionalbahnhof, where we would be taking the S8 or S9 train a "massive" three stops to reach the central station downtown.

Throughout the short ride, he kept looking at his slip of paper about his train connection to Wolfsburg, and he looked up at me, asking "Sicher"? (Are you sure?)

OK, look, dude - you asked for my help, why would I be yanking your chain, to go this far, to take the train from the airport to the main station, where in fact there is not only graphical signage *inside* the train showing us where we're going, but there's a nice lady's voice over the PA, saying "nächste Haltestelle: Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof ... next station: Frankfurt main train station".

We head up from the S-Bahn underground to the "Fernverkehr" (long-distance trains) at ground-level, where we found ourselves in front of the "board" to look for his train. I took him to the correct platform, wished him luck, shook his hand, and off I went.

The next conclusion to be drawn is the following. When you tell someone to follow you, the correct verb is "mitkommen," (to follow or to accompany), not "folgen" (to follow something or to result from something). I chose the wrong verb, which was only obvious after the fact ....

The final conclusion is this. Frankfurt am Main is Frankfurt on the river Main (pronounced "mine"). This prevents confusion with Frankfurt am Oder, located next to the Polish border, east from Berlin. So, if you see or hear "Frankfurt am Main main train station", don't panic. Your eyes or ears are not fooling you, and you haven't lost your mind.

Just be sure to check the signage overhead ...

Posted via email from H-posterous

Monday, April 19, 2010

Two maps of European airspace, 19 Apr

AP article (scroll towards the bottom)
NY Times (interactive article)

Posted via web from H-posterous

"My airline is more important than your safety"

I guess when airline companies are on the road to slow economic
rcovery that a natural event such as a volcano eruption might happen
to disrupt even the best of plans ... even if volcano eruptions have
been occurring since geologic time, and Iceland is a known active
volcano zone. I guess as well that companies are just itchy to fly
especially after limited test-flights were carried out by BA, LH, and
KL. I also guess that companies would prefer to go out and regain
their customer base as soon as possible. I suppose that the various
agencies which have kept European airspace closed have been
"overcautious without the most up-to-date facts", have been "relying
too heavily upon statistical or model data", and are simply
"inconveniencing" stranded customers halfway around the world as well
as families of tourists returning from vacation. I might also guess
that the companies would like to "blame" these same agencies, and by
"natural extension", the E.U. for economic losses incurred; airline
companies are now beginning to look for government help, though the
word "demand" comes pretty close. I don't suppose these various
governments would help all companies around their world for their
respective loss in productivity or their respective employees for
their lost wages ...

Should any plane develop trouble going between SFC and FLT 350, I
suppose that the first fingers of blame would be pointed at the very
same agencies monitoring European airspace. The accusations would
fly: the airspace authorities were not sufficiently careful to warn
airline companies of the inherent dangers of flying through ash, and
these authorities were being careless to put airline-staff and their
customers at risk.

Well, I guess if the companies are yelling the loudest, they must all
be true, all of the time.

- HL, 2105h GMT, 19 April 2010.

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

The absurd - MAD, or even FCO, as "major" gateways?

Given the predictions from the UK MetOffice regarding the migration of
the ash cloud over Europe and the North Atlantic :

one might imagine that the volcano Eyjafjallajokull will continue to
huff and puff for days. The next on offer might be to conceive some
interesting options for gateways into the European continent.

If disruptions to flight-ops for LHR, FRA, CDG/ORL, AMS, ZRH, etc.
were to continue, one might envision the (crazy?) possibility of using
Madrid (MAD) or even Rome (FCO) as alternative gateways into which a
number of major transcon flights would enter the European continent,
assuming approved ascents and descents between surface and
flight-level 35,000 feet (SFC and FLT 350).

As MAD appears to be in a zone relatively free of ash (see UK
MetOffice map above), questions raised about the possibility of
utilizing MAD as a "high-tier European hub" would include: terminal
and facility capacity for increased numbers in inbound/outbound pax,
in airline- and ground-staff, as well as gate-capacity and
pax-controls (as well as the controlled separation between Schengen
and non-Schengen traffic). Since MAD is an Iberia and OneWorld hub
and is already served by various AA and IB non-stops (for example, to
North- and South America), diverting additional AA, IB, and BA
transcon/transat traffic to MAD from LHR or FRA might not seem so
problematic. The fun begins when one begins thinking about
incorporating operations by other transcon carriers from North
America, the Middle East, and Asia, let alone the inclusion of
Lufthansa, which operates the lion's share of air traffic within
Europe.

With possible flight-ops restricted to below FLT 200 and to VFR-only
ops, "IntraEuropean" flights from MAD to other European
cities/capitals would be curtailed and operated at strict frequencies.
It would be like bus-service after all, and I wonder if some of the
airlines wouldn't be going on a run for more smaller/narrow-body
planes, or even RJs or turboprops, if the companies could figure out a
decent service-plan and a return (if any!) on going to smaller
aircraft. The impact on European LCCs would be something to consider,
too, but that's beyond what I had originally in mind ...

As a whole, picturing an alternative means of entering Europe in an
"ash-free" zone and how the facility like MAD would cope with
additional
capacity were both worth a moment's pause.

Yeah, it's crazy, and I might be wrong, but it's just a thought.

HL - 0345h GMT, 19 Apr 2010

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