Restless

Having learned my lesson after my last Air Asia flight, I got to the airport with two hours to spare. Also, due to dumb luck, I got a free ride. The man at the hotel desk in the morning said there would be plenty of taxis at the dock where the free long-tail boat lands. When I got there, a nice Portuguese couple had booked a van through the hotel. The driver didn't quite understand that we weren't all in it together, so I hitched a ride for free. Score!

Of course, things at the airport are as vague and confusing as ever. The check-in line actually moved though, and I found a decent cup of coffee. Security was a breeze (it's not a very big airport). So, I sat in the gate waiting room and, well, waited.

Around 7:10, I started perking up for my flight announcement. We were scheduled to board at 7:15. But it's a small airport, and there were no staff members to check with.

I took a turn around the room, and I noticed a few things: 1) the computer was showing that the flight was boarding, 2) there was only one waiting area for the three gates and we were there, 3) there were definitely no staff members present and 4) there was no airplane.

None of this is particularly good, but it's also not the end of the world. At least I could be fairly certain that I wasn't going to miss the flight because I was in the wrong place; there was only the one place to be. Still, I have a flight to catch at the other end, and while I know that I'm landing three-plus hours prior to departure and they won't even open up the check-in counter until two hours prior, giving me a good hour and change to cool my heels in the most boring part of the Suvarnabhumi Airport (I know because I showed up early last year for the same flight from the same carrier and that's what happened), I still just want to get there.

Now, I knew I wasn't the only Nervous Nelly in the crowd which was strangely comforting. If I was missing my flight, so was everyone else, and the chances of that happening are fairly slim. I could recognize the signs: people were looking up, they were "casually" strolling the perimeter of the room, they were looking at the monitor with some alarm. But I knew they'd come to the same conclusion I had: no one was going anywhere without an airplane. That, and this woefully backwater "international" airport had its computer on auto-pilot, showing a departure for a flight that was clearly delayed.

With 10 minutes to go before our scheduled departure, a woman in a red Air Asia shirt came walking towards the counter. Half of the passengers waiting in the terminal jumped up and formed a queue. I stayed sitting because I knew the secret: we still didn't have an airplane.

Sure enough, she made an announcement that our flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the aircraft. Big surprise there.

Ooh, I can hear airplane noise. So did everyone else. It looks like our airplane has arrived. They'll need a few minutes to deplane and give it a cursory clean, but I can't imagine this is anything than our plane.

I was right; our plane it was. They threw us on that thing lickity-split and had us off the ground in no time. Of course, I was sitting next to a giant. This dude was tubby, yeah, but he was also tall and broad-shouldered. Big. Poor man was obviously uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to lessen my own sense of consternation for being stuck next to the guy. He was a jolly giant, too. He talked to me in a little broken English as we were landing and he noticed I was looking out the window.

And, I made my next flight with plenty of time to spare. No need to get nervous at all, as usual.

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Location:Krabi International Airport, Krabi, Thailand