Enduring a 27-hour flight schedule
- Bob Hanna: Someday
- May 19, 2021
- 871
Well, we’re back home in Kentucky after two weeks in South Africa. With as much as we saw, did and experienced, it seems a lot longer.
With each trip that we take, I always keep a log or diary of each day’s events for reference to the Someday column or telling stories, and in some places (my penmanship is not great anyway), I was trying to capture all my thoughts at once and could barely read what I wrote. Let me tell you over the next several articles you are going to come along and experience some of the most exciting adventures in our South Africa safari — chasing animals, animals chasing us, almost being arrested and more.
Last time we had just boarded our flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam when we got hit with a second wave of storms, which delayed us about two hours due to the inspection crew. As someone told me, if we’re going to be in an airplane for eight hours (3,813 miles) flying at 540 mph at 37,000 feet, take as much time as you need to make sure we’re safe.
Let me just take a minute and answer a couple questions several have asked me about flights like this. To those who have already done it, bear with me.
What in the world do you do on a plane for that long? The longest single flight I’ve been on was 16 hours. Now remember which direction we’re heading, east across the Atlantic Ocean, crossing the international time line somewhere near London, England. We actually jump ahead six hours, and it can physically affect you, causing what they refer to as jet lag.
Yes, if you are prone to claustrophobia, I wouldn’t recommend it. But what seats you purchased from First Class luxury to main cabin economy seating also affects your level of comfort.
But you have a monitor screen in front of each seat, and they give you headphones to watch movies, listen to all kinds of music, and information about your plane including current location, speed, altitude and more (my favorite). Meals and snacks are served throughout the flight, and although cramped for space and depending on your food preferences, dining on a plane isn’t too bad.
They give you blankets and pillows and even those funny-looking blindfolds to sleep. You can actually get up and walk around as long as the seat-belt sign is off, which is on during takeoff, landing and turbulent air conditions.
Bathrooms can be a little tricky as they have three or four in between each section and you have upward of 300 passengers.
So let’s get back to our story. We did manage to get off the ground. Because of the delay, many (include Taryn and I) would miss our connecting flight. The flight crew assured us that, although infrequent, they have a system that automatically reschedules your flight and that they would take care of their passengers with any issues, which was awesome.
One gentleman came to us and told us that although we were going to be late, they had made arrangements with KLM (Dutch Airline) to hold the flight for six of us flying to Johannesburg.
When we landed, we were met with attendants who directed us to our flight, which they had arranged to be parked next to our incoming flight. Talk about exciting. After a quick inspection of our COVID documents, passports and boarding passes, we were met with cheers and applause by the crew.
This had its good points and bad points. Although we were only slightly thrown off schedule, jumping from one 8-hour flight directly onto a 10-hour flight without a chance to walk around a bit was physically challenging.
This flight would take us 5,765 miles south across a lot of Western European nations and across almost the whole continent of Africa. Boarding our 777-300, we noticed something very strange — the plane was almost empty. It held up to 300 passengers, and this flight had maybe 50 total.
I promise we did get to South Africa safely, and I apologize for rambling on some, but I love this stuff. Next time we’ll continue our story and adventures.
God bless y’all.