McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA
I would speculate that the percentage of on schedule departures around here hovers well below the 25% rate. And by on schedule, I mean on the day they are scheduled to depart. On time departures? Forget it. I bet that’s happened a dozen times total in my three year career in ATO (Antarctic Terminal Operations).
Today we put four passengers on an hour long delta ride to the airfield knowing full well that in all likelihood we’d be turning their shuttle around and bringing them back to town. Lest you think that an hour ride out on the ice shelf could be a pleasant scenic affair, let me paint a portrait of delta ride. Deltas are massive vehicles with tires as tall as me. If the vehicle ever had an effective suspension, it is long gone. Foam benches line the inside of the barely heated passenger box that sits high on the back of the vehicle. Scratched plexiglass windows quickly fog and then ice over with the moisture of human breath, dashing any hope of sighting penguins or seals or even just admiring the view. Afternoon thawing and nighttime refreezing of the snow roads leaves “washboarding” which is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. The dull rocking of the passenger box lulls the passengers to something just shy of sleep, but the semi-regular pits and ruts jar one from the haze. Today is sunny and relatively clear, but on an overcast day with flat light, the variations in the surface are impossible to see, and so inevitably the delta will plunge into an unseen hole sending the driver flying into the padded ceiling and the passengers in the back sliding off benches.
So four folks today spent two hours riding back and forth in one of these metal boxes only to end up back where they started with the promise of doing it all again tomorrow, when hopefully the weather at their destination will improve. But this is hardly the worst fate we’ve dealt a group of passengers. There were the passengers trying to get to the South Pole who boomeranged three times in one day. This means they rode a delta out to the airfield, waited to board the aircraft, got on a plane, took off, and some minutes later turned around because of bad weather, arrived back at the airfield from which they left, boarded a shuttle back to town, and then did it all over again. Twice more.
Last week, I finally saw off two passengers who had waited for two weeks for a working plane and good weather. They left town at 6:45 am, and I watched from my computer as the flight delayed for mechanical issues hour after hour. They finally departed at 5:45 pm. Four hours later they would arrive in camp where they would need to set up a tent before being able to call it a day.
If we were an airline, we would certainly be rated the worst airline in the world. We offer no frequent flyer mile condolences when people fly five hours to their destination, circle for an hour, and fly five hours back to town because the runway was impossible to locate and the sastrugi were as tall as the wings of the plane. When passengers are scheduled to fly, we give them departure times that sound like this: “Well, you’ll probably leave around 2pm, but you’re the backup mission for the first line, so you’ll need to wake up early and watch the transport marquis for updates just in case your flight activates. And then just keep your eye on it all day long. Don’t leave your room or go anywhere where we can’t find you in a heartbeat. Oh, and the weather at your destination looks marginal at best, so there’s a good chance you won’t fly at all.”
As a redeeming quality, we do a pretty good job of not losing luggage. I would hazard a guess that 99% of all passengers end up on the same plane as their luggage, and collect their baggage at their destination. The other 1% is sometimes delayed, or claimed by the wrong passenger, but even those bags eventually end up in the right hands. Not bad for the worst airline in the world.
