Clouds Of The Unknown

1st January 2017 9:01AM

"This is Tom Grant wishing you a happy new year it's just passing 9AM here in downtown Philidelphia and its set to be another cold one so make sure to wrap up warm and make sure to have something warm to drink, we're here all day folks on TopStop FM"

BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP

The unmistakable sound of my alarm clock woke me from my (up to that point) peaceful slumber. It had been a busy few days. We had left London on Friday afternoon, I recall it being very busy as many different people were trying to make it home in time for the new year celebrations. Unfortunately, storms in the area had been making travel a nightmare. The news was calling it the "Nightmare After Christmas" a nice little reference that gave me the chuckles whenever I saw it in the headlines.

Never the less we still managed to make it out of London all be it three and a half an hour's late. Every couple of hours the storms would break allowing for the passage of aircraft that wanted to depart and land, however with all of the delayed flights it was like a traffic jam in the sky with hundreds of planes looking for a suitable place to land with the vast majority deciding to divert to France and other parts of Europe. I guess we were the lucky ones as many other flights were most likely delayed for longer and probably even canceled.

Realizing I was still lying motionless in my bed I decided to make an official start to the day, however, the softness of the hotel pillows kept on pulling me back like I was a prisoner in my own bed. While I laid there I tried to piece together what had happened last night. I could distinctly remember meeting with all of the crew downstairs and heading out for a night out. Of course, it wasn't much of a night out considering that we were flying home the next night, however, we tried to make the best of it.

I rolled over and saw a few displaced items on my bedside stand. My phone was lying underneath a party hat and a pair of wacky glasses that read "HAPPY NEW YEAR" in big bold letters.

Good god I thought to myself, I knew my taste in fashion was never that good but there was fashion and then there was just plain ridiculous.

I stretched over and grabbed my phone turning on the power I could see that it was fully charged and it had just gone past 9 in the morning

"Damn guess I missed breakfast," I said to no one in particular.

It didn't really bother me that much considering I heavily doubted that any of the other crew members would be up yet. I'm pretty sure we weren't up too late, at the very latest 2 or 3 in the morning. However, that was no problem as we weren't supposed to be at the airport for a while anyway which gave us some much needed time to chill and recuperate.

"And coming up it's our first competition of the year, we are giving you the chance to start your year off with a bit of glim and a bit of glam,"

The sound of the radio play throughout the room for the next couple minutes as I listened to the usual radio competitions. You know the ones where they promise you more money than you can carry.

If only I thought to myself

Eventually, I decided to perform the unique human operation of leaving the bed. It took a couple more minutes but eventually I was sitting straight up on the king sized bed. While I was getting up I turned the local news channel on and listened in to hear what they had to say.

"If you're just tuning in this morning then I'm afraid you've missed quite a lot," The news anchor paused for some dramatic effect.

"God I'll never understand American media it's like watching a live action soap opera," I commented.

"The search continues into New Years Day for two missing passengers from a transatlantic flight from Miami to London,"

I looked at the TV with pure curiosity.

How is this even news. If I had a pound for everytime a passenger went missing then I wouldn't need to be a Pilot.

"The passengers were onboard the overnight flight when they went missing,"

Now, this peaked my curiosity. I reached for the TV remote and turned the volume up a tad just to be sure that I was hearing correctly.

"The plane was swept multiple times by the cabin crew during the flight and a further detailed search was conducted by security and border forces when the plane landed in London but nothing out of the ordinary was found,"

I looked at the TV for a bit truly puzzled. Eventually, I decided I would figure it out later and went about the rest of my morning.

I opened the curtains and saw the beautiful Philadelphia airport before me. The hotel was pretty new and had become the go-to spot for cabin crews during their stays. The hotel provided a great overview of the airport and from the view of my window, you could see the end of the closest runway.

I decided against going out to get something to eat as I imagined that most of the crew would still be in the early phases of waking up so instead, I opted for the best next thing. Room service. After carefully reviewing the varied and extensive menu I decided to have the full English breakfast brought to me. I knew full well that there was no way that I would eat it all, probably not even half, however, I was too tired to pick individual items so I just opted for them all.

After I eat a bit of the huge breakfast that I had ordered I got dressed. I carefully inspected every part of my uniform. I paid special attention to my new stripes. Instead of having three on my shoulder now in its place were four of them. I had only recently been promoted to Captain. I don't believe I was the youngest to ever achieve the rank but I'm pretty sure I was close.

I soon finished inspecting my uniform and began to pack away all of my things. I threw all of my "relaxing" clothes as I called them into my small suitcase and started to prepare my flight bag.

The flight bag had all of the necessary information for today's flight. It contained various maps and forecasted weather, however, I already knew that I would pick fresh ones up when I got into the crew area. From what I could see it looked like we were in for yet another whopper of a storm on approach but apart from that the rest of the flight should be fine.

Next to all of my flight books was my Ipad. I pulled it out to get and opened up my company app that all staff members had. From there I was able to get a more accurate idea of the weather, however, it was mostly unchanged. I decided to spend a few more minutes sitting with my Ipad playing a few brain teaser apps and catching up on the latest news. Whilst browsing I read some more on the "missing passengers" story, however, I remained skeptical.

After a couple minutes had passed I put my Ipad and phone on charge, I also made sure to put my on the go charger on charge. As the devices started to refill with energy I left them to go and double check that I had everything I needed. As I started to go through the first of many checklists I stopped and thought to myself.

This is going to be a hell of a trip

I checked my watch as I waited for the elevator to arrive. The symbols showed me that it was just passed 10 o'clock in the morning. After a bit of waiting the elevator finally opened its doors allowing me in. Luckily there was no one else in the elevator allowing me to fit all of my luggage in with me.

When I got to the ground floor I found it surprisingly empty. With the exception of a couple members of my crew and the hotel staff, the place was desolate.

Paying it no mind I walked over to the seating area that my First Officer and a couple of the Cabin Crew were sitting in. The area was filled with a bunch of soft large couches with little coffee tables positioned in front of the various seats. On the table, there was a selection of half drunken tea and coffee along with a selection of the hotels signature biscuits.

As I approached the area where everyone was sitting my First Officer noticed me walking over and stood up.

"Captain on deck," He said with military tone giving a little mock salute in the process.

As he spoke many of the crew turned around and broke off their little conversations to give me a nice smile.

"Morning everyone," I said giving my standard good morning smile. "I do hope that we aren't in the process of having any hangovers?" I questioned with a light smile.

In return, I got a few chuckles as many of the crew thought back to the events of last night.

"No suck luck I'm afraid," My First Officer replied.

Craig was my second in command. I'd flown with him many times and had formed a close friendship with him. He was around the same age as me if not a year younger. He was a bit on the skinny size but what he lacked in body mass he made up for it in his height as he was a good few inches taller than me. His love for aviation and flying rivaled my own, he would have no problems in talking at length about any topic aviation wise. Overall he was a very good friend which was something that I didn't really have much of.

"Want to make a quick start?" I questioned him

"Sure, wasn't doing much anyhow," Craig replied as he unlocked his own flight bag.

"So I was checking the weather looks like were going in for a rough one tonight," I commented as we looked over bits of paper that had been scattered across the small coffee table.

"Yeah well rough would be putting it lightly," Craig responded taking another sip from his tea. I had gone for a hot chocolate alternative as I had never really been a fan of tea or coffee.

Craig looked at the map for a few moments as if he was deep in thought. After a minute of relative silence had passed I waved my hands in front of him.

"Earth to Craig?" I said curious about his lack of tongue.

Craig was the type of person who could talk for hours on end and still have room for more conversations so this moment of silence was quite unusual.

"Earth to Craig?" I repeated again, however, this time I clicked my figures to try and get a response. My plan worked and Craig looked at me with a hint of confusion and then realized that he had been sitting silently for the past minute or so.

"Sorry," He said. "I was just looking at the weather and it occurred to me that once we left the NAT we could try and dodge the storms by flying over the Paris FIR before making a turn back towards London, that way we could potentially dodge a large portion of the storm," He finished his mini presentation and took another sip of his tea.

I processed what Craig had just said and to be fair to the guy he wasn't wrong. However, I had a feeling that there was something far greater that would stop us from executing this particular plan.

"Well," I started. "It looks good on paper I must agree but I heavily doubt we would be allowed the extra fuel required to make that addition to the route, plus we're already going to be taking on extra hold and diversion fuel due to the storm in the area anyway," I finished my counterpoint before returning my gaze to the map.

"Well it never hurts to ask now does it," Craig replied with a mischevious smile before breaking into a slight chuckle.

The next hour or so was spent discussing finer details about the trip and all of the contingencies that we may take in case the storm got too close for comfort. Eventually, our shuttle arrived to take the crew (which by this point had completely assembled) to the airport terminal. One by one we started to shuffle aboard the slick looking transport once aboard we compiled our luggage in one area before the doors to the shuttle closed over.

The engine revved and the shuttle started moving towards the terminal. As we began moving I took the opportunity to make my usual speech.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" As I started to speak the crew all stopped what they were doing and looked up some more eagerly than others. The wear and tear from last nights celebration had begun to crack through the thick wall of makeup that some of the ladies were wearing whilst the men just looked plain tired.

"Now I can already tell as I look around that some of us are still recovering from last nights... Celebrations," The pause gained an amused look from Craig.

"However I must remind you all,"

"Here we go," Craig muttered just low enough that only me and my crew chief could hear.

"That here at British Airways we represent a mark of quality and when we step out there we represent not only ourselves and not only our airline but the entire nation of Great Britain," If I had some inspirational music in the background that speech might have lifted the hopes of the whole company, however, it was the same speech I used every time and the crew many of whom I'd worked with before just looked at me with that "we get it" kind of look.

Seeing that I'd clearly done enough speaking I took my seat next to Craig who had a cheezy grin on his face.

"Well, I must say every time I hear that short speech I just get so inspired," He said mockingly.

"Yeah okay I get it I'm clearly not the best speech writer," I replied my face now bearing a hint of annoyance.

"Emphasis on the clearly there,"

"YES, thanks for your input Craig it has been ever so helpful do me one favor though," I said the annoyance increasing with every passing second.

"What?"

"Shut up," I replied quietly like a whisper of air in his ear. My head cabin crew poked her head between ours and smiled.

"Wow Craig a new record it only took you a minute to get him to say it," She said giving me a slight pat on the head.

"I know I'm kinda just brilliant," He replied.

"If you two weren't my best friends this would be a staff complaint," I said trying to bottle up my frustration, much to my friend's amusement who only gave chuckles in response.

Yep a VERY long day...