Flight lesson trouble

While United Airlines are probably working hard on their bettering their image, Hans seems to have taken a liking to the airline business model. When I was working for a certain flight school (way back when, yes, the one where most of our ideas originally came from) we often had students cancel last minute which left the plane parked and the instructor roaming around the airport rather aimlessly getting him or herself into trouble.
I can’t believe we never thought of just overbooking the planes!

One summer there we had this father/son team from Europe book a Cessna 172 for 3 weeks. Since they were already licensed, they were going to just get checked out and then tour the States for the rest of the time by plane. The “real” Hans was very excited and already saw big dollar signs because he expected the plane to fly every day. We did a fresh 100hr and moved a bunch of students to other planes to accommodate for the trip. The two jokers showed up and flew ok so they got signed off. The next day their big adventure started with their first over-night stop being Las Vegas …

(* pause for effect *)

Well … and that’s as far as they went. After not hearing from them for almost a week we finally received a phone call that they lost all their money gambling and couldn’t continue on with their vacation. If I remember right, they didn’t even have enough money to bring the plane back (or they didn’t want to have to face Hans, LOL). So they just left the plane and went home and that was the last we ever heard of them.
Maybe Hans is on to something here after all. Though it looks to me that Scott is a fairly buff chicken though so I’m not sure how Chuck will fare on this one.

Actually, now that I think about it: It seems to me that my dentist does the exact same thing. Every time I show up there, I’m far from being the only one in his waiting room …

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7 comments on “Flight lesson trouble
  1. Franck Mée says:

    I can’t believe we never thought of just overbooking the planes!

    Well, WE DID.
    Last time I went to the airfield, the C152 I had booked for 3 hours was stuck in the repair shop, so I was rescheduled on a C150. And the guy that was supposed to fly on the C150 just before me was… Well, let’s say he hadn’t noticed the plane was now booked with absolutely no margin for lateness. He was just taking off when I got to the airfield!
    So basically, we were two on “my” 3 hour-slot, and I could fly barely an hour. I was not as angry as a United steward, but I was definitely not in my best mood.

  2. Quill says:

    Man this United incident has really taken a life of it’s own on the Internet meme-sphere. Given them so much bad publicity that I almost feel sorry for them. Almost… I wonder what my dad, a United A320 captain, thinks of it all? He’s probably just thinking something along the lines of “Well I just fly the plane, not my problem. CEO’s fault, Union this, Continental merger something, Delta that (he really hates Delta) grumble grumble…” Also, despite all this I’ll still take United any day over Spirit (the extreme of pay little and get treated like shit) or Frontier, who I’m surprised Spirit hasn’t sued yet over blatant imitation. My first choice would be Southwest though, they are the only airline with any decency left it seems, at least in the US.

  3. KenH says:

    Hansy?
    Scurry off before the nice man caves in your skull
    I know I would beat you until you begged to die, but I’m MEAN….

  4. mike says:

    You should see somebody about these anger issues, Ken…..

  5. Bruce Bergman says:

    This ws a cluster#### of the highest order – they got bumped into a slightly smaller plane for the flight – Then after shuffling away a few seats to cope with that change they boarded the plane – then they had the 4 “Must Fly” crew dumped on top of that. And one of the bumpees decided to be a Drama Queen…

    But they’ve learned – the hard way, but they did. No more bumps after boarding, the Must Fly have to get there an hour before the flight (which means before boarding) or they get to wait, Must Fly or not. Which they should have been doing all along, but Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

    Just because you can be an ass and throw around Absolute God Powers doesn’t mean you have to – actually it’s a pretty good reason why you shouldn’t.

  6. Tampa says:

    Schadenfreude is best freude xD

  7. ThunderClaw says:

    perhaps the 3 of them will beat up Hans

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