I was away in Spain recently and, thanks to my shitty salary, I had the honour of flying with Ryanair, again. I don’t like flying with Ryanair, never have. Perhaps it’s the headache-inducing bright yellow cabin or the exceptionally high ratio of male flight attendants or maybe it’s just because Michael O’Leary is a tight fisted wanker. I don’t know.
I’m not really great for flying with any airline, not since the Twin Towers came down. I know there’s more chance of winning the lotto than dying in a plane crash but even still, I can’t relax on a plane. There’s always a “What if…?” scenario being played out in my mind when I fly. And on Ryanair flights it’s worse than usual.
I had flown over to Spain a few days previously with Aer Lingus and it was a much nicer plane. More legroom, better headrests, seats that actually recline. A flying palace compared to the winged sardine can I now found myself in. Having kicked and punched my way to the front of the queue, I was one of the first to board. So I chose my seat and settled in, waiting then to see who would sit beside me. Here’s a tip: If you see someone eyeing up the seat next to you, but they look like a bit of a freak, make gurning faces and mutter to yourself. They’ll quickly find themselves somewhere else to sit. Works every time, trust me. Pity I forgot to do it.
The man that parked his arse in the seat next to me had John Waters written all over him. A fuck ugly, middle aged, self-righteous tosser… with a briefcase. Who fucking carries briefcases these days? Briefcases are for cunts. I just knew that this guy was a knob-end, and the knob-ends always try to make conversation.
“Hello there”, he said, not wasting any time.
“Howz’it goin?”, I replied. I tried to sound like a scumbag, hoping then he would just shut the fuck up and leave me alone. My scumbag accent musn’t be very good. To be fair, he didn’t yap on as much as I thought he would, but when he did talk, it was pure verbal horse shit. You probably met someone like this yourself, the type of person who tells a total stranger what’s good to eat on the menu.
“It’s Ryanair… it’s all shite” I said. I’m fucking right too.
“Honestly…”, he says, “…the wraps are delicious”.
I don’t know where this guy gets his dinner, but personally, I’d sooner eat a tramps trousers than a Ryanair wrap. To call it ‘delicious’ is just preposterous. Maybe he meant the wrapper was delicious? That would make a bit more sense. Either way, I was getting pretty fucking aggravated by this asshole. He must have sensed it:
“You don’t like flying, do you?”
“Not really, no”
then he started:
“I used to dread flying, but now I enjoy it… I’ve read a book about the fear of flying… it’s all in the head, you know? The book told me how to overcome my fear… now I love flying…”
Somebody please shut this fucker up. Another 1… 2… 2 and a half… Bollocks, another 2 and a half hours beside this wanker. I didn’t even bring a book. I’ll have to pretend to sleep, I thought. So next time the conversation died down, I tried my best to get into a comfortable sleeping position (impossible) and closed my eyes. I didn’t think I’d actually sleep (since I can never sleep on planes) but surprisingly, I conked out in a matter of minutes.
When I awoke the first thing I did was look at my watch. I had slept for two whole hours… Nice one! We’ll be landing soon enough and, for some unknown reason, no-one seems to talk during landing. Just then the pilot came on the intercom:
“Hi Folks, this is your captain. Just want to let you know that there are strong winds over Dublin at the moment, so our descent may get a little bumpy. ”
“Shite”, I thought, “That’s the last fucking thing I wanted to hear” . I started feeling uncomfortable right away, and I noticed that I was beginning to sweat. The man beside me, seeing I wasn’t too happy about hearing this news, tried to reassure me that everything would be ok.
“I fly a lot, it’s never as bad as they make it out to be”, he said.
“Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be fine”, I said. I wasn’t fine though, not one fucking bit fine.
The next couple of minutes passed without event. I thought that maybe the captain was wrong or the winds had died down and I was just starting to relax a little when the plane began to tremble. It started out as a small tremor but quickly got stronger and for a good 30 seconds we were shaking rather violently. The shaking stopped quite suddenly and everyone around me took a deep breath. The tosspot seated next to me said, “Fuck, I didn’t like that”.
Great. Now Mr “Everything’s gonna be ok” was nervous too. That didn’t help.
The respite didn’t last long and the trembling started up again in much the same fashion as the last time. This time, however, was even worse than the last, and the cabin was really shaking hard. Then, suddenly, we dropped. There were screams coming from behind me and one man at the back of the plane shouted “JESUS CHRIST!” rather loudly, which would have been pretty funny if I wasn’t screaming it in my own head at the same time. I’ve no way of knowing just how far the plane fell, but I’ll tell you now that if I wasn’t wearing my seat belt my head would’ve burst through the overhead storage compartment. Brick-shitting was rampant.
After the shaking stopped and the plane had steadied it course once more, the captain came back on the intercom, sounding a little worried:
“I’d just like to remind all passengers to ensure that their seat-belt is tightly fastened and to make note of your nearest emergency exit”. He might as well have told us to repent our sins.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID HE SAY THAT FOR…??”, shouted the man sat beside me, “…THE ROTTEN CUNT!”
“Oh fuck”, said I in reply. Thoughts of ploughing into the Irish Sea or the long term car park were now racing through my mind, and by looking at the faces around me, I’d say I wasn’t alone. As we began to descend over Dublin Bay, I tried my best to avoid thinking about the words “Impact” and “Ball of fire”. Strangely, I found myself saying goodbye to my loved ones in my thoughts. Death was imminent. As we neared the runway, I gripped the edge of the armrests so tightly I’d say I left impressions of my fingers in them. My eyes were firmly closed as I waited for the bang. Thankfully, It never came.
The landing itself was very smooth and I let out an enormous sigh of relief. Some people cheered, others were thanking Jesus or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever ridiculous lord they believed in. Some, like me, were too scared to say anything. I looked at my hands I noticed that I was shaking like Michael J Fox after 20 cups of coffee. I swore to myself that I’d never fly with Ryanair again.
There was no fluting around when the plane came to a stop. Everyone grabbed their shit and got off the plane as quickly as possible. You would expect that the captain or the flight crew would apologise to the passengers as they disembarked but no, nothing. Not even so much as a fucking “thank you”. The pilot didn’t even have the decency to come out of the cockpit and I’m sure I heard the sound of hearty laughter as I walked down the steps. Cheeky cunts.
I didn’t notice I right away, because I was so eager to get inside the terminal to safety, but as I left the airport some 20 minutes later I noticed something odd: There were no trees bent over… no bits of rubbish blowing down the street… no sign of any fucking wind at all. I lit a cigarette and even the cigarette smoke was just… drifting… away. There couldn’t possibly have been less wind.
The laughter from the cockpit suddenly made sense. We were had. The pilot staged the whole fucking thing for a laugh. The bumping, the shaking, the worried voice telling us to find our nearest emergency exit and THAT FUCKING DROP. All a big prank.
I have a message for the pilot of that Ryanair flight, whoever you are: You’re a total prick. Honestly, what kind of a sadistic asshole purposely scares the living shit out of 200 people for a fucking laugh? I saw an elderly woman praying for her life. I saw a young couple getting off the plane and they’d obviously been crying. In fact, Everyone onboard including the “I love flying” fuckwit was visibly shaken, some of them might never fly again. All so you and you ‘crew’ can have a few giggles? You prick. I hope your plane nosedives into an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean and you burn to death in the most horrible way. I’ve got the right mind to blast your fucking plane out of the sky (where’s the Al-Qaeda when you need them?) you fucking prick.
And just so you don’t forget: YOU’RE A PRICK.
And you owe me a pair of underpants too, you cunt.
