Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

 In My View

An amazing air travel; almost like a movie

Published : Friday, 9 December, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 330
Syed Badiuzzaman
Some people sometimes experience some unexpected incidents during their travels and they never forget them. I also faced not just a single but a series of such incidents during my first trip from Dhaka to Washington in 1988 which I will share with readers many years later today. It was almost like a movie; a memory of a lifetime.

It was the month of June and I was heading to the United States after receiving the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship as the first Bangladeshi journalist following a worldwide competition. Under my travel plan as fixed by the fellowship, I flew from Dhaka to Calcutta by Indian Airlines, from Calcutta to Delhi by Air India, from Delhi to Frankfurt, Germany by Pan Am and from Frankfurt to Washington DC by Trans World Airlines.

Except for Dhaka and Washington, I was in transit at every airport -- Calcutta, Delhi and Frankfurt -- for five to ten hours. At Dumdum Airport in Calcutta, I waited for about five hours before getting my Air India connecting flight to Delhi. In Delhi, I had the longest wait for about ten hours prior to my transfer to Pan Am Airways. I was also in transit for some six hours in Frankfurt before boarding the Trans World Airlines for Washington DC -- my final destination.

Flying Indian Airlines as scheduled on a sunny and bright morning, I arrived at about 10:00 a.m. at Dumdum Airport in Calcutta from what was then Dhaka's Zia International Airport. Wearing a mustard-colored summer suit, I stood in a long line of passengers with my single piece of carry-on luggage for checking-in with the airport customs for my next connecting flight. Compared to most passengers in line, I was foolishly overdressed making myself stand out from the crowd.

But I was not the only one who was wearing a suit. Few other travelers were also in the same dress as mine drawing attention of some Indian airport customs and immigration officials. A couple of wary and curious officials started inspecting the passenger queue and asking for passports from some travelers. They asked for my passport too even though we all lined up there to show our passports anyway at customs and immigration counter. I gave them my passport without any hassle. An official took it to their office and returned it to me within a few minutes.  

After the customs and immigration formalities, I walked around at the terminal for a short while to get a view of India's one of the oldest airports. Since that was my first trip there, everything appeared quite nice and new to me. Coffee is my most favorite beverage, so I already had one at the first available opportunity at Dumdum Airport. As I was traveling in economy class, I didn't have access to airport lounge. So, I started looking for a place where I could comfortably stay for the next few hours. Then suddenly I noticed the office of Bangladesh Airlines and entered there.

As I introduced myself to the manager of Bangladesh Biman and informed him about my travel plan, he warmly greeted me and shook my hand. To my surprise and somewhat beyond expectation, he began treating me like a VIP even though I handed him my business card of simply a senior staff reporter of the New Nation which was back then in 1988 a rising English-language newspaper of Bangladesh. A gentleman and very friendly guy, the manager did all he could to make me feel comfortable. "We are very happy to have you here. Please stay in our office until your next flight," he assured me.

As the lunch hour approached, I told him that I needed to go to the food court for eating something. The manager then smiled and said: "We have already made an arrangement for your lunch at the upstairs Chinese restaurant here." Although I refused their arrangement and thanked them for treating me so nicely, Biman's manager was in no mood to listen to me. He walked me to a fairly big restaurant of Chinese cuisine, sat me at a comfortable place and then asked me to choose whatever menu I liked and order for them. He, however, didn't join me at the lunch saying "I have some urgent work to complete right now."

After finishing my lunch and spending some more time at the Biman office in Calcutta airport, I headed toward the specific gate of my connecting flight for Delhi. About 45 minutes later I boarded an Air India aircraft. The plane started moving and taxied several hundred yards down the runway. But instead of speeding up for a takeoff, it suddenly stopped initiating whispers among the passengers -- what was going on, what was happening, why the plane suddenly stopped etc. And what happened next was never imagined by any passenger of the plane including me.

As the aircraft came to a complete stop, the front door of the plane opened rolling out its stairs as a member of the crew started making this announcement over a microphone from the plane's cockpit area: "Attention passengers! Mr. Syed Badiuzzaman flying from Dhaka to Frankfurt, could you please come to the front door of the plane?" First I failed to pay my attention to the announcement. But when it was repeated, I realized they were calling me. Totally baffled by the unexpected incident, I walked toward the aircraft's front door. As I reached to a male member of Air India crew who was standing there, Bangladesh Airline's Calcutta Airport office manager suddenly entered the aircraft and handed me a sealed envelope.

Breathing fast, he said: "Zaman Bhai [brother] there is an air ticket inside this envelope for my son. He is in Texas. When you will reach Washington DC, please buy a US postage stamp for this letter and put it into a mail box there. I forgot to give it to you at my office." Then he hurriedly left the aircraft and I came back to my seat with his envelope. While the incident was quite astonishing to passengers of the plane who were mostly Indian nationals, I was surprised to see the level of cooperation between Air India crew and Biman officials at the Dumdum Airport. However, I found it quite hard to imagine that a passenger plane which already started taxiing on the runway for a takeoff could stop to entertain such a request from the officials of another airline.    
 
Around 5:00 p.m., we arrived at Delhi airport from Calcutta. As we came to the terminal, I saw some people holding up some hardboards with names of some just arrived passengers. Suddenly, I noticed a beautiful and smart-looking young woman standing there holding just a sheet of white paper with clearly written my name on it. First I thought it couldn't be me. Then I thought about the opposite. So, I asked her if she was there for me. "Are you Syed Badiuzzaman from Dhaka?" she asked me in a counter question. "Yes, I am," I replied. Then she said: "I am from Pan Am Airways. I have come here to take you to a hotel. Our airline vehicle is waiting outside and the same vehicle will bring you back to the airport at 3:00 a.m. for your 4:50 a.m. flight to Frankfurt. Pan Am has also arranged your dinner at the hotel." When a passenger who came to Delhi in the same Air India plane from Calcutta saw me at the hotel's restaurant in the evening, he smiled with a shout: "O, you are that famous person for whom our flight was delayed today by half an hour."   

The hotel accommodation and dinner arrangement by Pan Am Airways came as pleasant surprises for me as I never received any advice about these when the Alfred Friendly Press Foundation sent me the air ticket for my travel from Dhaka to Washington. I thought I would be staying at Delhi airport for the whole time until my early morning flight to Germany. However, the fellowship did inform me that a senior journalist from the Deccan Herald newspaper of India named C.K. Meena would join me in my flight from Delhi to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to Washington. As scheduled, I boarded the Pan Am airliner at Delhi airport at about 4:00 a.m. and just a short while later C.K. Meena entered the aircraft and smartly sat next to me by the window.

"Hi, I am Syed from Dhaka. You must be C.K. Meena," I told her. "Yes, you are right, Syed. I am Meena from Bangalore," she replied. I found her quite soft-spoken and extremely polite. The flight from Delhi to Frankfurt wasn't boring as I had a companion. In Frankfurt, we were in transit for six hours but time passed there quickly as again I had a travel mate to chat with. At last we both boarded the Trans World Airlines for our final destination Washington DC and roughly nine hours later an amazing air travel which I still remember came to an end.
The writer is a Toronto-based journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun as a guest columnist







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