Flight Response

Having bought our tickets for Canada as fast as possible, to attempt in vain to race to my father's deathbed, we were stuck with the next-day results: almost as much time in airports as in the air, in both directions. Plenty of time to muse about this strange phenomenon of hurling oneself across the globe's great circles so quickly that the soul is left behind, with jetlag the result until reunion with the body is achieved.

It has been discouraging to see that a greater set of destinations for one airport can mean a lesser set elsewhere, such as has happened with Edmonton, Alberta's capital, and Calgary, its largest city. Much business has moved south to the latter. Gone are London and other European places; Reykjavik is mostly a stopover; Amsterdam is only seasonal; and all the other "international" locations are in the USA, Mexico or the Caribbean. Our choices have shrunk, and Tbilisi/Kutaisi/Batumi-Edmonton now cannot be done in less than three flights.

I always fervently pray that my luggage will greet me at the endpoint carousel, and not disappear into the terrifying void of Lostness, potentially ending up at any airport of the thousands in the world. And prefer many hours in an airport to only two between flights, given the choice, knowing how easily an earlier flight's lateness or (even worse) other delay for which the airline will Not Accept Responsibility can bring the whole following house of cards crashing down. It nearly happened to me at the second of NINE connected flights in 1994, taking me three quarters of the way around the world. The extended panic (this was going to be my fault) felt like a heart attack, while the relief at Not Even Boarding Last was a collapse in sweaty gratitude. Surabaya, Jakarta, Singapore, Helsinki, and a few more I now forget, ending in Seattle.

Wi-Fi! We must have it for free in such places! The quality and quantity vary; an enterprising believer in the desire of information to be free has listed, and updates, all known airport Wi-Fi access ways and means around the world.

Now we have more than half a day in Istanbul's Ataturk airport, where I cannot connect at all for free, just come tantalizingly close: connected but not. En route here I read that Turkish Airlines has been voted Europe's best airline for the sixth year in a row, and believe it, based on a score of little things done right. This airport aims to become the largest and busiest in the world within a few years, which will need plenty of new building but, given the country's other infrastructure investments, is doable. We at least find a quieter place to stretch out and sleep during our long wait. The only loudspeaker announcements are increasingly frantic and scolding bilingual ones as gates approach their Final Call, that most dreaded of conditions. Heathrow in London does not even have these; just relative silence and lots of lit boards.

Oh, and by sad coincidence, here comes a fellow asking me if the flight gate next to me was for Jakarta, which it might well have been, given the dress of the large waiting crowd, now tragically sealed off from his lateness by a Closed Gate. My heart goes out to him. I have been in this situation only once (in Paris), and hope never to repeat it in my life. Your pleadings fall on sympathetic but unbending ears. You must wait for your luggage to be removed from the plane and then try to identify it. And then you must get yourself home by other means. For me that time it was an overnight bus to Frankfurt, unsleeping of course, and then a flight to Tbilisi. So near, but so far!

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1350 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/

He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:

www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti

Tony Hanmer