Aviation Ignorance

[ramrod]

This was sent to me by a friend of mine...............hope the forum gets some enjoyment out of it.


A DC airport ticket agent offers 12 examples of 'why' our country is in trouble!

1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)
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2. I got a call from a Kansas Congressman's (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts .''

Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ''Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ''

His response -- click.
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3. A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that's not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, 'don't lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!'' (OMG)

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4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife (Landra Reid) who asked, ''Is it possible to see England from Canada ?''

I said, ''No.''

She said, ''But they look so close on the map.'' (OMG, again!)
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5.An aide for a cabinet member (Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas . When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ''I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.'' (Aghhhh)
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6.An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky) called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn't understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.
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7. A New York lawmaker, (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, ''Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?'' I said, 'No, why do you ask?'

he replied, ''Well, when I checked in with the =2 0 airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight. I think that's very rude!''

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is (FAT - Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage..
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8. A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii . After going over all the cost info, she asked, ''Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii ?''
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9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright (D) from Ala who asked, ''How do I know which plane to get on?''

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ''I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.''
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10. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)
called and said, ''I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida . Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?''

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane.

She said, ''Yeah, whatever, smarty!''
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11. Mary Landrieu (D) La. Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. 'Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those.''

I double checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ''Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!''
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12. A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations, ''I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .''

I was at a loss for words.. Finally, I said, ''Are you sure that's the name of the town?''

'Yes, what flights do you have?'' replied the man.

0After some searching, I came back with, ''I'm sorry, sir, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a rhino anywhere."

''The man retorted, ''Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!''

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ''You don't mean Buffalo , do you?''

The reply? ''Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.''

[cfields70]

LOL.....

I pray for the country.........

Chris

[ashaman]

Well, it makes me feel a little better... up before reading this I believed only Italy had... this kind of persons in the government.

[pilotgod]

First off, regarding number 5 and as someone originally from the D/FW area, Dallas is a large airport and before the people mover system was up and going, if you had only one hour to go from Delta (Terminal E) to American (Terminal A) or smaller carriers (Terminal B) the car idea really isn't that far fetched. Granted, a cab would be better if you couldn't catch one of the shuttles that was already running the terminals.

For like minded humor of this sort regarding aviation I recommend www.skygod.com (Nothing to do with me, just an awesome aviation literature and humor site by a Continental pilot.)

[Johan Dees]

And those people 'rule' the world ? hahah!

[johnfromoz]

Not bad!

I keep hearing that Americans are geographically uninformed, but when I was there a few months back, I found it wasn't any different to here, at least for those I encountered, so maybe it's just the political leaders! Not that that's reassuring...

I did have one well-meaning young guy, when he found out where I was from, say, "Oh, wow, I always wanted to see Australia, especially New Zealand!"

[chris_c]

Geographical ignorance is usually good for some chuckles but it is not an American monolpoly.

Back in the eighties the German Army Training Establishment (GATES) in Shilo, Manitoba Canada regularly had the conscript soldiers rent cars intending to drive to Toronto or Montreal on their 48-hour passes. The former is 2300 km and the latter 2500 km from the base, Gates actually produced pamphlets for the troops that superimposed West Germany onto a map of Canada centered on Shilo to give an idea of the distances involved when travelling in North America.

On the other hand...

Just last week I had the opportunity to chat with a gentleman who was visiting Duncan, BC from Tacoma, WA with his family. Having a plane to catch from CYYJ Victoria to Seattle early the next day he hoped to scoot into downtown Vancouver to see Gastown and the tourist stuff on Granville Island.

Needless to say it came as a bit of a surprise to learn the Vancouver Island is really an island, completely surrounded by water and that his Vancouver jaunt would be a 90-minute ferry ride followed by a 45-60 drive to downtown Vancouver on the Mainland.

One has to wonder what he thought all that water he was flying over during the trip to YYJ (via Horizon) was. For the record, Tacoma is less that 150 miles (perhaps 250 km) from Vancouver via Interstate 5 and BC Highway 99.

Chris

[pilotgod]

The worst case I've seen recently is when my nephew argued with my brother that there is no way he has ever been to Tasmania, since when he was in the Navy he never deployed to any part of Africa. When my brother asked him what he meant he argued that Tasmania was a country in Africa, his geography teacher showed him on the map and also called my brother a liar. Even after my brother showed him an atlas of where Tasmania was and that the country in Africa is Tanzania, he still backed his geography teacher. Yeah, I love my nephew, but he sometimes is not the brightest.

[johnfromoz]

Absolutely, Chris. I have to say that in planning my trip to the North-West, I deliberately flew in via Vancouver. Initially, because Vancouver Island looked so nice in Flight Sim ;D (and by elimination, I chose Air Canada over other options).

But when I finally realised the town I was admiring was Victoria, and Vancouver city was a long way off, I thought, WTH, it'll be nice to see part of Canada anyway, and I did. Glad I allowed even a mere few hours between flights to take a look round, and I'll be back first chance I get.

I only had time to look around the waterfront, down the bottom of Granville, by the way, but I found a lot of DHC flying out of the harbour

I think it was something less than 45 mins by air between CYVR and KSEA in a Jazz Dash 8 - and they seem a little, er, worn. A couple of airport staff were surprised I didn't just drive for three hours rather than fly!

Tasmania, eh? (See, I even picked up a Canadian accent!) I blame Pilotgod's nephew's misinformation on the Warner Bros classic cartoons. When they showed the Tasmanian Devil in habitat, there were tropical plants drawn in the background. Tasmania is very temperate. And bloody cold sometimes!

[bookie1066]

Ramrod

Can I get your permission to repost this to FreeRepublic.com? Anytime you can bust the chops of politicians. They'll love this over there.

[johnl]

It IS possible to see England (or at least some of it) from Canada.

Canada is a hamlet at the northern end of the New Forest (N50* 57' 19" W001* 35' 03") about 9 miles WNW from where I live.

Can't really imagine many people wanting to visit it, though!

[ashaman]

Sept 9, 2009 10:48:40 GMT -5 johnl said:

It IS possible to see England (or at least some of it) from Canada.

Canada is a hamlet at the northern end of the New Forest (N50* 57' 19" W001* 35' 03") about 9 miles WNW from where I live.

Can't really imagine many people wanting to visit it, though!

I don't think they were talking of THAT Canada... wherever that is. ;D

[pilotgod]

How Canada got its name: Back in the 1700's when England was still getting its act together on the North American continent, it was looking to differentiate between the rebel rousing 13 colonies and the ones up North that behaved. They thought long and hard and decided to call it the Cold Northern District, or CND for short. One of the locals looked at the proposal and replied "C, eh? N, eh? and D, eh? Hmmm." To which the British exclaimed "It does sound better like that.", and CaNaDa was born. :-)
Apologies to the Canuck neighbors, I'd call it Yankee humor, but being a Southerner, I can't do that, I hate the Yanks too.

[johnfromoz]

Sept 9, 2009 18:31:20 GMT -5 pilotgod said:

How Canada got its name: ...and replied "C, eh? N, eh? and D, eh? Hmmm." ... Apologies to the Canuck neighbors, I'd call it Yankee humor, but being a Southerner, I can't do that, I hate the Yanks too.

I heard a version of that joke from a Canadian, so I conclude the Canucks are jolly nice folk with a sense of humour like Aussies... incomprehensible to most other nationalities!

[emfrat]

I always thought it came from a native Indian word 'Kannata' which means the same as 'Kangaroo' - the rough translation is "My good man, I do not have the faintest idea of what you are trying to say, so please just get back in your canoe and go away' ;D

MikeW