Today's Notables

Before in Shinko, I have written about Dr. Gustavo Nunez, who is the president of one of our partner companies, NDT, in Panama. I received word from him that he wanted to speak with me as soon as possible, and if we were to meet in the US, I would have to plan at least 4 or 5 days. I had no choice but to open up some space in my schedule because the only 4 or 5 days open slot I had was three or four months out. I didn’t think it would be possible to meet his request in the near term because I was supposed to go to India with the Japan Food Machinery Manufacturers' Association. I have not been to India before and when I was head of the youth section of the Association, we had planned a trip to India a while ago but I can clearly remember that one Japanese person was killed in a terrorist incident at a hotel in India right as we were planning that trip and decided we had no choice but to change our plans. This was one reason I was looking forward to the trip this time but it was also the only time I could get a 4 or 5 days slot to change my plans, so I canceled my plans to go to India and set my course to New York to meet Dr. Nunez.

The direct flight from Narita to New York was the usual 14 hours and started out with no problem. But as we approached John F. Kennedy Airport for landing, the plane got caught in a rainstorm, causing a significant amount of turbulence and instantly lurched up in the air as if it were a fighter plane. The pilot came on over the speaker and I expected that he would announce that we would attempt landing again but instead he said that we could not fly into JFK. Of course, with not enough fuel to fly much longer, he announced that we would fly to Boston instead. There were sighs of resignation in the plane with few complaints from the already somber group. In a little less than hour, we were safely landed in Boston because, like an unwelcomed guest, all gates at JFK were closed to inbound flights. So there we sat on the side of the runway near a hangar. Another announcement interrupted the silence and the pilot informed the passengers that we would refuel and attempt to fly back to New York because gates at Logan were not available. Minutes later however, the pilot was on again with a further update, "all flights inbound to JFK have been cancelled due to inclement weather." We had to wait four hours on the runway for the airline to make the proper preparations. I have had this type of trouble a number of times when traveling by air and I am always interested in how the airline company responds to customers. Of course they have a lot of experience with these kinds of events but they only tell customers what is going to be done and what the next step is. The reason for this may be that giving customers a complete plan may lead to complaints by customers who do not like the plan, prompting complaints by other customers who essentially join in crowd given the power of group thinking. On the other hand, with only a little information to go on, passengers in this situation may just resign themselves to the problem instead of fighting it. The next step we heard was that since it was an international flight, we should disembark with carry-on luggage and go to such and such counter. Doing as I was told, went to the counter and found out that I would be able to get a flight the following morning to JFK. The person at the counter explained about hotel and food vouchers, which apparently varies according the price of the flight.