Dad & Czech Airlines To Prague & Why I Missed Alexandra's Birth
Originally uploaded by Mark C Brooks
Here's a picture (13th June, 2008, Abu Dhabi) of my dad, Denis George
Brooks, and Brother-in-law George. He's 76. He had is first heart attack at
age 63 and had a quadruple heart bypass and promptly gave up all smoking and
drinking and lost 50lbs in weight. Now, he refuses to quit working, and
lives most of the year in Abu Dhabi where he serves the expatriate community
with investment advice and options. Two weeks ago he had heart attack no.2,
and relentless as ever he hauled himself onto a plane and flew home. The
airplane hosts probably realised something was a little wrong when he
requested oxygen after the plane had taken off. He is now in Grimsby
hospital healing up a broken kidney, poorly heart and lungs. He's making
good progress now, but I was rather hoping to see him today.
I left on a 9:55pm flight on Friday for a quick visit to UK to visit dad. Irena's water broke 11pm, three weeks early, while she was supping a latte with friends in Prague. I landed
in UK and was greeted with 'Mark Brooks, please contact information.' Staff
ushered me to a phone to call my sister. I figured: 1.my dad's condition had
worsened, or 2.my nephew was trying to catch me before I hired a car, so he
could pick me up. But it was option 3. Irena's water had broken.
Back to Prague! If only I could. There were no more flights from the UK
that night. The information staff rallied to try and locate the next
possible flight for me. One was from Birmingham at 10:30am and one was
from Gatwick at 7:30am on Czech Airlines (CSA). We spent the next two hours
trying to book the Czech Airlines flight to no avail. A bug on their
booking form prevented me from booking online, despite numerous attempts in
every iteration possible, with multiple cards. The Czech Airlines staff were
all nicely tucked up in bed so I couldn't book it over the phone or via
Heathrow. I went with the 10:30am flight from Birmingham. Alas, that ended
up getting me in just a little too late to catch the birth. I'll be
choosing the non-CSA flights wherever possible in future. Czech Airlines
needs to pull its socks up. Easyjet, BMIBaby, RyanAir and Sky Europe all
offer better services to Prague, btw ;-)
