On Thursday 17th June 2011 I left Newcastle, England for the second time. I caught the metro from Seaburn to Newcastle Airport to catch my flight from Newcastle to Brisbane, Australia via Dubai. As you can imagine I was sick of airports spending the day previously in Belfast Airport. What happened on my last day in Belfast was the GPS decided to give up. Being afraid of missing my flight and being totally burned out and frustrated with the real prospect of getting lost, I thought it would be a good idea to get back to the airport early so that I could reduce this anxiety.
While at Newcastle Airport I asked for assistance on the plane. Everything was fine in England but upon the route home, things were not as good. In Dubai communication was so poor they thought I was another person who required assistance also. Furthermore, when reaching the airport terminal at Dubai, I found myself waiting in a queue for approximately 2 hours at 12.30am in the morning. Finally I was able to get a few hours sleep before boarding the next flight to Australia at 10.25am which was a 13 hour flight. On the whole Emirates are not a bad airline but they need to review their support for passengers requiring assistance. A wheel chair is not always required. Just some reassurance when navigating the airport terminals and getting through the stress of customs and passport control.
Now that I am back in Australia it is back to business as usual. I need to replace timing belt in the car and work on profit and loss statement for the book I published. Furthermore, I have to be prepared for idiots and ignoramuses who are going to be quick to criticise or make life difficult where they can. Relying on intelligence is one way to try and tackle such a problem.
Next year I will look at doing another trip but for now it is business as usual.
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