When I was little I thought a flight with a stop was similar with a bus or a train: people get in, the plane stops, people get out and then the plane takes off again.
Being a traveller myself I soon discovered this is not the case. Until I got into that flight from Tel Aviv to Barcelona with a stop in Istanbul. It was operated by Pegasus, a Turkish airline it turns out I really like.
The very early flight from Tel Aviv was fully booked. The sit I got had an issue of Der Spiegel magazine in the front pocket. I opened it and said to myself I will take a look at it later. But then I got deep into my book (Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness) and I totally forgot about it. Landing in Istanbul – at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport – pretty late (there were about 40 minutes between my flights) I let myself go with the flow: most of the people in that flight were heading to the transit area, where their hand luggage was screened (again) and their plane tickets stamped (do not ask, I don’t know why!).
Exiting the plane we found the corridor towards ‘connection flights’ closed (with that airport rope, you know). So we created a huge line, blocking the entire ‘finger’ connecting the plane with the airport building, until a brave Asian remove it and set us free. At the end of the corridor, the door was closed. We waved to the people in the airport to go fetch someone who could open it, but the only blonde girl who saw us had no clue what we wanted to say… So we turned around and headed to the other corridor.
After that, the rest of the trip to my connection flight was adventure free. I soon found myself in the waiting area, in front of the gate, staring at the blond lady I just mentioned before.
This is when it hit me: I’m flying to Barcelona with the same plane! How cool is that?
Once I got in, I checked the sit 10A (which was mine in the previous flight) and here it was, ‘Der Spiegel’ magazine in the pocket.
I felt like a child during the whole flight and wondered how many times this might have happened to me without noticing?
