Airline!

At the moment I'm sitting composing this in my living room for the first time ever.Yes, I finally bought a laptop computer and mobile broadband. Well, I've discovered one disadvantage - well two actually, though related. The first is that my dad likes to sit and watch the television here and the second is that he likes to talk about what he's watching to anyone in the room. It's most distracting.

Anyway he is currently watching Airline. This is a program that shows the trials and tribulations of the staff at an airport and the bit that's on right now shows a very loud mouthed customer arguing with an Easyjet desk clerk because his flight has been cancelled.

Actually it has reminded me of an incident when I returned from Thailand. I had to change planes at Amsterdam but my flight from Thailand was delayed by several hours. On the journey it made up some of the time but not all of it. Now I don't know if you are familiar with Schipol airport but it's absolutely huge and my departing flight for the UK was at the opposite end to the arriving flight from Thailand. Everybody sprinted across the airport but to no avail. The connecting flight had gone.

There were two distinct reactions from the passengers. Some got irate and started shouting at staff and banging desks. The rest of us went and got a cup of coffee, waited for the angry passengers to finish then strolled up to the desk and asked politely when they could get us onto a plane home. There was one in about two hours but, and the staff were very apologetic, there were so many people who had missed the previous flight that it was very unlikely that they could get us all on. The next flight after that was more than six hours later.

So everybody waited to see what would happen and to my great surprise I got a seat on the earlier one. Looking around the departure lounge I noticed something very interesting. All the people who had been patient and polite were there and NONE of the people who had been shouting the odds and threatening legal action were.

I'm not saying that this was anything but coincidence but it makes you think, doesn't it? They say that politeness costs nothing, which is true, but it can also buy quite a lot.