What is in Kelvin's Head?

In praise of Easyjet staff on a very bad flight home

26/06/2014

I know it isn’t often that you read something in praise of an airline after a particularly difficult journey. However, yesterday I thought that Easyjet did pretty well with a horribly fraught journey from Alicante to Glasgow.

I was travelling back from a retreat at a Jesuit retreat house in Spain which I try to go on every second year. It should have been a straightforward trip – an hour by car to the airport, hanging about for the usual check-in stuff and then a three hour flight to Glasgow.

What happened was this…

Firstly it became apparent that because of a dispute by the French Air Traffic Control people (who are deeply wicked and naughty) things were not going to go terribly smoothly. The flight was initially shown as being delayed for an hour but it was a full hour and a half after the normal boarding time that we were able to get on the plane. We were then told that we would be held on the tarmac until there was permission from France to fly. This was something of a surprise as we had believed we were on our way. Expected delay was 2 hours. However after 2 hours nothing had happened in a hot, sticky and very cramped way and the captain appeared in the cabin to announce that unless we got going smartish he wasn’t going to be able to fly us to Glasgow anyway as he didn’t have enough working flying hours in the day to take us there.

During this time, most of the passengers were grumpy but content that all was being done for them that could be done. All except one, who had an outburst at the flight crew saying that he was being messed about and blaming them for what was going on. Clearly, the staff wanted to get home as much as the rest of us.

Anyway, the prospect was opening up before us of having to get off the plane and spend a night in some hotel in Alicante (or Benidorm?) before coming back the next day early to fly. This was not an entertaining idea. Fortunately though another plan was devised. We would take off and whilst in the air, Easyjet would arrange for us to land somewhere or other (Luton? Gatwick?) where a new pilot and crew would join us and fly us on up to Glasgow.

This was met with a round of applause by the passengers who clearly didn’t want another night in Spain.

So, off we went and all was well (though significantly delayed) until we landed at Luton for a change of drivers. The crew distributed what food was on board. (I think the failure to take more food on board a flight that was clearly headed for long delays is the only real error I can see in the whole proceedings). I ended up eating a pot meal of cous-cous and lentils which tasted as bad as it sounds.

Anyway, we got to Luton and were told that the new crew were walking towards the aircraft ready to take us on to Glasgow. The retiring captain got a cheer for his efforts so far and disappeared.

Then Mr Angry Passenger decided to grab his hand luggage and make a run for it, fighting his way through the people stretching their legs and heading for the open door and steps which had been put next to the plane.

Now, getting off a plane without permission and wandering around an airport is a bad idea. So, one of the cabin crew tried to head him off, telling him he would be arrested if he stepped onto the tarmac before making a call for police and security to attend the plane.

The result of this was Mr Angry halfway down the steps shouting, Mrs Angry and one of their unfortunate children at the top of the steps and two further children at the top of the steps at the other end of the plane. Meanwhile, we had crew at the top of the steps trying to remonstrate with Mr A and get him back on board along with pilots and security people at the bottom of the steps trying to sort it out.

It was clear that the plane wasn’t going anywhere soon – although the rest of the passengers were in no danger, we had effectively been hijacked.

Now, this being a Glasgow flight, of course, we all believed we were all involved and that his business was our business. Several burly passengers were offering to go down the steps and get Mr A back onto the plane forcibly whilst several others were of the view that their muscle might be helpful in making sure that he never got on the plane again.

This phase of the journey was concluded when Mr Angry was joined by Mrs Angry and the poor Junior Angrys and led away. (Personally, I hope he was arrested and that Easyjet try to recover the costs of all this from him).

In all of all that was happening, the Easyjet staff behaved brilliantly, chatting with passengers and doing all possible to calm down what had become rather tricky and with the potential to get worse.

Sadly, the departure of the five recalcitrant passengers did not end our troubles. Security proceedures meant that their hold baggage had to be removed from the plane. Furthermore, we then discovered that it also meant all the luggage had to be removed from the plane and remanifested. So, ground crew had to be procured to remove all our luggage for checking. Not only that, but the cabin crew had to go through all the cabin lockers removing everything in them and asking passengers to identify what was theirs.

Eventually, we had accounted for everything and got under way with the new crew (who had believed they were going to Palma last night) expertly getting us to Glasgow where we landed at 2230. The flight should have arrived at 1610 – so it was 5 hours and 20 mins late. I’d spent 8 and a half hours in the cabin and I’ve never been more pleased to see the lights of Glasgow airport. Total journey time door to door was 13 hours.

And despite that, I couldn’t praise the crew more highly. They dealt with everything brilliantly, professionally and calmly. Full marks to Easyjet.

In other news, I had a fantastic retreat.

Alicante, Easyjet, flight, Glasgow

20 responses to “Apologies have consequences too”

Andrew Cain

15/04/2016

You say so often and so eloquently what I feel.

Reply
1. Father Ron Smith
  
  16/04/2016
  
  Food for serious thought, Father Kelvin. I don’t suppose there has been any objection raised by the Church of England Bishops about the liberalising ativity of our Norwegian partner’s in Christ. It is this continuing double-mindedness that exposes us Anglicans to the charge of structured hypocrisy. Keep up the good work you are doing on your web-site. Christ IS risen, Alleluia!
  
  Reply
Alan Wilson

15/04/2016

Thank you, Kelvin. It’s certainly a change of the mood music going on, but self-lacerating apologies are subject to the law of diminishing returns unless they indicate what we call “Metanoia” – change of mind, aka repentance. This means things real change. Without it, apologies breed cynicism, not hope. When, for example, a bishop tells us he is ashamed whenever he encounters homophobia in the church, curious minds want to ask him “when did you last encounter what you call homophobia in the church? What was it like? How was it separable from the ideology that validated it? And since it’s such a shameful thing, what are you going to do about it?”

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  16/04/2016
  
  The real disconnect for me is that Justin Welby is someone who clearly does know something about what reconcilliation is. He can’t have done that job in Coventry and not known and he can’t have named reconcilliation as one of the key strands of his time as Archbishop without knowing that metanoia is part of the deal if that is what you are chasing after.
  
  However, I can only come back again and again to the possibility that there are those who simply think that LGBT are indeed actually worth less than real people.
  
  Reply
  1. June Butler
    
    18/04/2016
    
    Kelvin, after I read your words about the empty apologies by authorities in the church after which their behavior does not change, I could not help but think what you stated in your comment, that the leaders, with exceptions like Alan Wilson, believe LGTB folks are lesser. What else can we think? My advice would be to stop apologizing and be honest, which would be a step in the right direction, because at least the hypocrisy would end.
    
    Reply
adrian copping

16/04/2016

Thank you for this. Something similar has been happening here in Wales in the past week or so where our Bishops have apologised AND issued some prayers which are authorised for use in connnection with ministry to LGBTI people. This is to be welcomed as a sign of a step in a positive direction but, at the same time, leaves a lot of questions and many disappointed.

Reply
Bob Webster

16/04/2016

Saying it is a “constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality” is not an apology. At best it is a request that someone should stop making him feel bad. That could be the people doing the persecuting, or it could be us who should just be quiet and preferably go away. An apology would be “I apologize for the hurt I have caused and as a consequence of recognizing my sin I will cease that behaviour and do everything I can to get others to stop as well.”

Reply
Ruth Richards-Hill

16/04/2016

Kelvin, you are an expert at stating things so eloquently that makes everyone else in the Anglican communion squirm.

I was not oblivious to the fact that as a lesbian woman I entered a family of churches with a huge diversity of attitudes towards my sexuality. It was only because of the grace and love of Jesus Christ that I felt safe to come into the church despite my “flaws” and receive baptism. Is my baptism any less valid because I am a lesbian?

As a convert from Orthodox Judaism I suspect that I am sometimes more acutely aware than others at what should be in my mind a glaring hypocrisy. Rabbinical thought always looks for an alternatives to explain why a certain situation does or does not apply according to halachah (ecclesiastical law – much like the canons). But the balance either exists or it doesnt. Jesus speaks about divorce and makes it quite clear that its not really an option, while in rabbinical law, it certainly is an option. We are taught that he came to fulfil the law and yet we his church are part of a new covenant are we not? The church seems to have taken the easy way out and will marry people who have divorced, but will not marry gay couples. So if divorced people are part of the new covenant, why arent us gay folk?

I could get into all the biblical quotation arguments and as someone that reads Classical Hebrew better than most Anglicans I know, I have no fear in taking a stand on my point. (My Greek needs a little more work however.) That said, I dont see a balanced biblical foundation for excluding some that are automatically excluded by literal translation of scripture, but not others, but rather an inherited bigotry and hypocrisy that continues to thrive simply to satisy the whims of member churches whose societies havent quite experienced the journey that ours has. While that doesnt invalidate their position, neither does it invalidate the position of our society and our spiritual progress should not be hindered to satisy the agenda of those religious leaders that appear to be pandering to the demands of those churches that have not walked the path of ours.

I have arguments that cover more than simple translations and exegesis particularly surrounding what the rules were both before and after the death of Christ, but those are for another day. I know that I am a baptised Christian and Jesus loves me as much as any other, not because I am gay or straight, but because I am one of his, and therefore he wants me to thrive within his covenant rather than the stifling, unreasonable and hair splitting laws that came before – Ones that I personally know how incredibly impossible they are to live by, no matter what your sexuality, or colour, or intellectual ability. – I was there once.

When our Bishops and leaders realise that Christ died exactly to make the Christian lives of the likes of me equally valid as straight people, then perhaps we’ll make a little more progress and not see these “apologies” as merely lip service. Its almost embarrassing to LGBT people for whom their faith is a core part of their lives. It certainly is for me.

Reply
Ruth Harley

16/04/2016

Any child in my Sunday School group could tell you that repentance is not just “saying sorry” it is “saying sorry, being sorry, and changing”. Possibly ++Justin’s words make it as far as the first of these, but I’m not convinced they signify the second, and the third is nowhere in sight. Perhaps I should send my 5 year old theologians to Lambeth and/or Lusaka to explain! Or perhaps it’s just that those who are issuing these ‘apologies’ aren’t really thinking in terms of repentance, or seeing the need for it, at all.

Reply
Mark Falby

16/04/2016

Apologies mean nothing if not backed by action.

Reply
Junia

16/04/2016

Well I did recently get brutally and spectacularly dumped by an American lesbian, so perhaps they just are naturally more wicked over there…

In seriousness though, thank you for this wonderfully elegant post, Kelvin, summarising so much of what I have felt since ++Justin’s statement in January. I’m starting to get a little sick of being apologised to.

Reply
1. Cynthia
  
  17/04/2016
  
  Speaking as an American lesbian, I’m sure the Norwegian lesbians are much better people, and that we are “naturally more wicked…” 😉
  
  Kelvin expresses well the debacle of January. But interestingly, Justin just delivered an amazing sermon at ACC-16 that marks a major change of heart and theology if he’s sincere. We’ll see. A lot has happened since January.
  
  Have a look at the sermon, it’s in the Anglican Communion news. I’d hate to think that those are just empty words. Time will tell. But I want hope.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    17/04/2016
    
    Could you point us towards the sermon, Cynthia. I’m not seeing anything at all that’s new in relation to the things I’ve written about above.
    
    Reply
    1. Cynthia Katsarelis
      
      17/04/2016
      
      Here it is: http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/04/new-calls-for-new-times-archbishop-welbys-presidential-address-to-acc-16.aspx
      
      To me this seems like a new direction, born of recent realities, and perhaps inspired by the Holy Spirit.
      
      Of course, my hopes could be typical, off-the-charts American optimism. We wicked American Episcopal lesbians just know that the Promised Land is at the end of the next rainbow.
      
      Reply
      1. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Cynthia – this is what I was writing about above. It isn’t a new direction. It is what I’m complaining of. Talk of reconciliation whilst not engaging in it.
        
        There’s not a word in it about a new direction on the way the ABC relates to the Anglican Communion’s troubles. Not one.
      2. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        It seems like he was asking people to focus on the major characters, climate change and religious violence, and to work together within our diversity. That sounds like a new tack. Of course, it will be interesting to see if this translates into action. Will the discrimination against married clergy stop? Will the ABC stop pandering to the primates who didn’t show up to ACC-16?
        
        You might be right, you seem very prophetic to me. But I want you to be wrong this time. I want hope, and to work together on things that actually matter.
      3. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        There are simply no signs of what you hope for, Cynthia. None.
      4. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Perhaps not. But I was recently a TEC delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women where I met a posse of awesome women from the Anglican Communion Women delegation. We had great interaction and they affirmed a “walking together” statement they wrote in 2007. It says they are staying in communion, no matter what the guys do. We women in TEC are drafting a response, graciously receiving and affirming the statement. Against this, Justin doesn’t stand a chance and he might as well change his tune.
        
        PS. One of the awesome delegates was a Rachel from St. Andrew’s, Scotland.
Richard Barnes

17/04/2016

I was really hopeful about the Anglican Communion’s purpose from reading Rachael’s blogs from UN CSW last month. But not for long. ABC Welby’s Sermon reads like a random speech generator and says much the same as he’s been doing for months in global fora.
It’s like a couple who talk about the garden and the difficult neighbours because they don’t want to talk about their sex life.
Clever way to end ACC with everyone apparently united by talking about bigger issues.
But to read ++Welby asking for nuanced theology, when he’s totally binary (Christian=happy, healthy, wealthy & wise) just made me laugh.

Reply
Robin

19/04/2016

> In the last week we’ve had the latest document on family life to come from the Vatican and it is very clear that there’s a change in tone from the current pope and it is hard not to welcome that.

I don’t see any change of tone in the following, which is the beginning of paragraph 251 of “Amoris Laetitia”.

> 251. In discussing the dignity and mission of
the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as
for proposals to place unions between homosexual
persons on the same level as marriage,
there are absolutely no grounds for considering
homosexual unions to be in any way similar or
even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage
and family”.

I’d call that a monumental snub, deliberately administered, or an equally deliberately administered drenching with cold water.

Reply