23,750 miles flown.
10 countries visited.
1 flight left to get back to the United States. Can you guess what happened next?
Yes. Complete travel plan meltdown.
I found myself two days ago at Gate 35 of the Abu Dhabi International Airport wondering why my 10:00 AM flight still had not boarded at 10:30 AM. That’s when an Etihad Airways employee came out to tell the angry horde of 300 hopeful travelers that the flight would be delayed for a brief moment due to broken toilets. Toilets? Not just one, but all of them? It was surreal, almost like that scene from Christmas Vacation.
Cousin Eddie proudly proclaims, “The shitter was full!”
Almost on cue, a large, old, Indian woman in a wheelchair was pushed out of the plane and back to the gate area. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but even I can deduce that it was this very same crusty sack of filth that must have done some “de-deucing” of her own and somehow, someway, completely broke a toilet on this jet. In fact, I had earlier seen this woman gleefully walking under her own power through the airport’s Duty Free shopping areas. Apparently she was so full of crap, after faking frailty and demanding a wheelchair to gain early access to the plane, that’s it’s completely possible she broke the entire aggregation of toilets aboard this aircraft.
An hour later, and the plane remained grounded. They handed out meal vouchers and told us to come back in another hour. So we did. All 300 of us. Then they informed us that the plane’s problem was so bad that they would have to call in another plane, which would not arrive for another couple of hours. This meant they would be taking us to a nearby hotel, where each of us would be given rooms and dinner. All 300 of us.
Chaos ensued. Some people were crying, as they were about to miss important events. Others were shouting angrily. The idiots at Etihad Airways promised everyone that arrangements would be made to get new connecting flights arranged. I found out later that this was a blatant lie. Upon my arrival at JFK I was told that Etihad had made no such arrangement for me. It’s amazing that their toilets ever work considering how utterly full of shit this airline is.
It occurred to me, while staring out at the beautiful control tower at Abu Dhabi International Airport, that this place wasn’t hurting for money.
Let’s do some quick math. 300 passengers. Lunch vouchers at $11 per person. Rooms at the very nice Radisson Blu at $211 per person, plus a very tasty buffet dinner which I will conservatively estimate at $25 per person. Multiply that by 300 people, it equals roughly $74,000. Add to that the cost of shuttles from the airport to the hotel and the plush bathrobe that I took some people probably took from their rooms.
How much does a plunger cost in Abu Dhabi?
Somebody is bad with money. And that somebody is Etihad Airways, which I will forever refer to as Cousin Eddiehad Airways.