It’s time once again for my semi-annual WWE sponsored vacation to the UK. This time Manchester will be the unfortunate recipient of the WWE TV crew, or, as we have been called in the past, ‘Invasion of the Septic Yanks.’

International travel is usually painful. The best thing to do is try to remain optimistic, because there’s really nothing you can do about it anyway. During the inane pre-flight announcements, Captain Tom O’Connell came on, with a voice that sounded like Smithers from the Simpsons – if he was full of Vicodin, and said, “Folks, I have some good news! Our flight time to Manchester will only be five and a half hours instead of the listed seven.”

Wow, that’s really some good news, isn’t it? An hour and a half saved! Perfect. We pushed back from the gate at JFK, and within five minutes, it all fell apart.

As our plane stopped moving, Captain Smithers came back on and said, “Folks, you ever try driving over the bridges and tunnels in Manhattan? Well, there’s usually traffic, and that’s what’s happening to us now. We’re kind of stuck right now. Hopefully, I’ll have some taxi information very soon.”

Hang on a second… we have to take this plane through a tunnel? What the hell is going on up in that cockpit anyway?

And then, still on the ground, the engines shut down. Then, they started the movie. That’s usually a good indication that you’re probably going to be sitting for a while.

And sit we did. For an hour and a half, occasionally interrupted by some optimistic comments from the captain, such as, ” Folks, this is actually pretty typical for leaving New York for Europe on a Friday. Everyone wants to come to New York after all!”

Uhh, yeah, except for the hundred fifty of us that want to get the fuck outta this place!

After twenty minutes, Captain Smithers came back on with more dribble. “Folks, don’t worry, we build long taxi times into every flight leaving JFK. This flight has an hour and a half scheduled for taxi time, so the good news is, as long as we take off within a half hour, we will land in Manchester on time!” He continued, “And more good news? We are at the front of the line to wait, with thirty eight aircrafts behind us. And hey, at least there’s no turbulence down here!”

Yeah, and it’s hard to crash too, but that doesn’t help, does it?

The final announcement before we took off: “Folks, we’ve been sitting here for an hour and forty minutes now, and… oh, hang on a second… well, good news! We are now fifth in line to take off. Sorry for the short delay.”

And with that, we finally took off for Manchester.

Congratulations Delta! For building hours of ground time into your schedule, including short delays of over an hour, you have officially been awarded the prestigious GFY award!

Author: frenchy