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You are here: Articles > Flight stories > Flight to Berlin #1
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Article overview A student flies off from Montréal to Berlin for a two-month stay... but first, it's the long trans-Atlantic crossing to Frankfurt. Originally published in January 2005. |
 his journey starts on a day I had been waiting for more than a year: July 27, 2003. I was on my way to Berlin to finish my undergraduate degree by attending classes on German history. The trip seemed more than promising: I would fly on a non-stop flight this time, leaving late at night, from an airport I was glad to use, probably for the last time as a departing passenger and which holds a special place in my heart: Mirabel!
 Once again, excess baggage!
8:30 PM. The terminal was not busy, except for a small queue in front of the gleaming yellow counters where a few other Air Transat flights were checking in, including mine, TS260, on the second leg of a Toronto - Montreal - Frankfurt route. A two-month stay justifies a lot of baggage, but unfortunately, it's too much for Air Transat. Since the last time I flew with them, little had changed, and that includes their checked baggage policy. The maximum was still 20 kg (44 lb) and I'm still way over it, with 30 kg! Once again, the agent was willing to make me pay for only 8 kg less. I'm starting to wonder if it's a trend to be "sympathetic", or if it's just an airline policy that agents can negotiate a few pounds. I had to first surrender my passport, go to another counter, pay the baggage supplement of 25.00 CAD, and then come back to obtain my boarding pass.
The boarding pass looked the same at first. But hey! They have replaced the old stamping system with, I presume, a laser printer. The pass now has my name on it, and destination. Frankfurt is written in French. Wait a minute... Boarding time is two hours before our scheduled departure time of 11:40 PM?! Hum. Blame it on 9/11? So far, the flight seemed on time... Why wouldn't it? After all, we were leaving from one of the most underused large commercial airports in Canada: Mirabel. After kissing my sister, my brother, and my parents, who are having a hard time holding their tears, it's time to cross the security checkpoint in a flash. There's no rush. There's no crowds. The only "entertainment", until the flight leaves, seems to be the duty-free shop, the bar... and the benches in front of gate 48. The screens next to the gates don't display anything. No flight number, no boarding time. As a matter of fact, it looked like it was going to be an on-time departure, from this quiet airport. The waiting gameThere was one little detail that can change things. The fact that our plane still had to arrive from Toronto. As I waited, I looked at the other passengers. Wow. A lot of Germans here. I recognized them with their red passport: "Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Reisepass." My German had gotten better since the last time I flew to Germany, and I recognized bits here and there of the chatter. Many of those people had books with them. Maybe I should have brought one with me. I also look at the flight attendants, sitting by the window facing the parking position where the plane is to arrive shortly. I see an UM (Unaccompanied Minor), joined a bit later by another one, waiting behind the counter next to the gate.
Boarding time!Time passes, and it doesn't look that way, actually. It seemed we'd be leaving either on time, or slightly behind schedule. Boarding was finally announced. It's free-for-all: since the passengers from Toronto were already on the plane, and we weren't that many boarding in Mirabel, we were not boarded by row number. Our aircraft was an Airbus A310-300, with probably one of the most laughed-at registrations in the entire country, and particularly among airline employees: C-GFAT. When booking my ticket, I selected seat 4A (a bulkhead), thinking it would give me more legroom. Well, it did. About an inch or two more, maybe. I was excited because, this time, I told myself I should try to make the trip more pleasant by, first of all, talking to my seatmates. Who knows? They might have interesting things to talk about! Just when I have these thoughts in mind, a teenage girl asks me, in French: "Where is seat 5A?" Maybe she had this sixth sense that I was an aviation fan and would be as good as a flight attendant in directing her to her seat! "Right behind me, over there", I replied. She seemed lively. Someone to talk to, in order to kill time. Maybe I'll have someone like that seated next to me. I wasn't so lucky. The woman seated right next to me in seat 4B was a middle-aged Quebecer woman, trying to sound like an English-speaking Canadian, and obviously tired and grumpy. Next to her, in 4C, an even grumpier man who hasn't said a word so far, and who was one of the last to board. As I store my cassette player (yes, I was an old school guy back then) and my notepad in the seatback pocket, I feel a tap on my shoulder: it's the teenager. - Where are you going, she asks? - Berlin. I'm going there to finish university. What about you? - I'm going to a tiny city called Ulm to finish High School. My uncle is going to pick me up in Frankfurt. - Interesting! I wish I would have done that.
We pushed back from gate 48 at approximately 11:25 PM. Once the safety demonstration was finished, as we taxied to runway 6, I heard the teenager tell her seatmates all about her study trip to Ulm. Augh! That could have been me. Over the P.A., the chief flight attendant announces, as usual, that lights will be turned off, but that we could use the reading lights if we wanted. Just as I turned mine on, the lady next to me said that they asked us to turn them off. "Actually, the flight attendant said she WAS turning the lights off, but we COULD use our reading lights." She just said "Oh", and looked away. At 11:40 PM exactly, we are cleared for take-off. The Seat Belt Sign did not turn off until we smoothly reached the cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, as indicated by the moving map on the TV screens. As soon as the sign was off, people started asking for blankets like crazy: the cabin was a bit cold. We were served a snack made of a small ham sandwich, orange juice, and coffee or tea. Like last time I flew with them, the flight attendants didn't pick up the empty trays until 45 minutes and two or three cups of coffee later. The guy in seat 4C got particularly frustrated by this. Our first movie, Kangaroo Jack started. I was too tired and excited to even pay attention. I decided to listen to my own music instead. The flight was a bit turbulent. We even had a moderate zone of turbulence which made a few passengers say "Ooooh!" or "Whoa!"... and the captain turn the Seat Belt Sign on right away. I tried to close my eyes and rest, by trying to forget that I'm flying in a shaky plane. Turbulent ride
I must have rested (not fully slept) for about an hour, because when I opened my eyes, I lifted the window shade and I saw a beautiful sunrise. The movie Catch Me If You Can was just about to start. English and French soundtrack with Dutch subtitles. Goodie! I love that movie. I'm just surprised, though, that they show two movies featuring scenes on a moving airplane. We also had the programs Friends, Just for Laughs: The Gags (our very international Canadian "candid camera" program) and Fashion TV.
During the second movie, the flight attendants got several requests for soft drinks... and then one flight attendant started passing around the cabin with plastic cups and a large bottle of spring water. Very appreciated! Because the cabin is crammed with more seats than the scheduled airlines, and because the passengers try to sleep in the best way they can, I had to dodge several pairs of legs invading the aisle as I made my way to the rear lavatory (one of them was out of order!) Now, I don't know if I came up with this, or if I heard someone else said it, but from that moment, I felt like nicknaming the airline "Air Crampsat." About 2 hours before landing, we were served breakfast. It consisted of scrambled eggs, accompanied by potatoes with salsa, a muffin, a fruit salad (grape, apple, cantaloup), orange juice and coffee or tea. It was tasty for me, but several passengers did not finish it, including our friend in seat 4C! I took a picture of the tray, to eventually send it to AirlineMeals.net  , but it was too blurry to even be put on any website.
12th in priorityThen, the end of it. We started our descent into Frankfurt. I felt the plane making a lot of turns, as we flew over vast lands of green green grass... "of home?" Well, sometimes I like to think that Germany is my second home, even though I never lived there for more than two weeks... until then. We landed in Frankfurt with a few minutes delay, at around 1 PM, Central Europe Summer Time. The Captain was friendly with the few announcements he made, including the last one, where he mentioned that the plane had hit the lunchtime rush hour and was 12th in priority for approach at one point.
Her uncle was there, like she said. But my friend Laura wasn't. However, soon enough, her father was there. I was happy to see him, but also a bit dissapointed because I thought I would have time to go to the visitor's terrace (Besucherterrasse) before they came to pick me up. He saw me even before I went to the easy-to-find meeting point (Treffpunkt). And what's more: the distance from the passenger exit and the car of my friend's father who picked me up was extremely short too. After Frankfurt, what comes? A week-end stay with Laura in the Cologne area... followed by a short hop to Berlin a few days later! | |||||||||
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This is part of a series of 3 articles on a trip from Montreal to Europe and back. Click on the numbers below for easy navigation.
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Boarding pass: by Sergio Ortega. All A310 photos: from Airliners.Net: A310 pushing back: photo by Richard Barsby.A310 on take-off: photo by Dean Barnes.A310 landing: photo by Philippe Bleus.
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