WhatevAirlines.com

After missing a few heart beats in the week running up to the big move, the day finally crept up on me like a little child playing “BOO!” games with you. Boo games being the cattle equivalent of cow tipping at weirdly and unholy hours of a Welsh morning. I’d booked my flight on Oasis Airlines, a company that is claiming to be the first ever long-haul budget airline. Initially, I was supposed to fly out on the Monday, but, due to the late arrival of the airlines second plane (!), they had to cancel my flight. They’d initially rebooked me for a flight that same night on New Zealand Airlines… or so I’d thought. I called the airline and when they told me that I wasn’t on the flight, another mini-heart attacked beckoned. I got in touch with my travel agent and he said they’d put me on the flight for the next day and upgraded me to Business Class for my worries. It was all becoming a little hairy. I tried calling the number Oasis Airlines had left me in my email and I ended up contacting a little old lady in North London, who told me I wasn’t the first person to call her about this shenanigan. I was beginning to wonder if this company was really for real. With a name like Oasis, my mind was rushing. Motto’s like, “Mirage Airlines, seeming so close, you really believe you could touch it” or “Oasis Airlines, making you fall for a vision”. After a string of worrying emails to the travel agent again, I received a quiet and re-assuring one back, informing me that this was actually an official company. Still somewhat apprehensive, I decided to go with it and set off for Gatwick the next day, giddy as a schoolboy, eyes nervously wide, twitching away like a madman and with the hairs on my arm standing so much they caught winds which had never before been caught. Like the ones on the escalator when the guy in front of me farted! That was not cool. There’s never anywhere to run to when that happens. They deposit, it lingers and you have no choice but to travel through it, grimacing. Anyway, Kirsten dropped me off and I set off on my epic ride with nothing more than my shoulder bag, rucksack and guitar in hand. Jessica had told me to ask for seats in the middle of the plane if possible and right at the back. When I got to the check-in desk, I not only breathed a sigh of relief when I saw “Oasis Airlines” plastered all over the screens, but also sported a little smile as there were no cues there what-so-ever. I walked up to the counter and said hello to the guy behind it. He was writing something on a piece of paper and when he lifted his head, he raised an eyebrow, looking me up and down. At first, I thought he was wondering why someone, dressed as shabbily as I was, would even dare walk up to his counter… but after a while, I realized he was actually checking me out! I mean, I know I sound and maybe even seem gay sometimes but… do I look gay too???!!! Grrrrrr!!! Maybe it’s the hair! I dunno. So yeah, I told him about the “sitting at the back” thing and he just giggled and said “Ermm… ok, lets see what we have here...” He bent over backward for me, strapping my guitar with extra duck-tape and giving me all the time I needed to “fill” out the necessary paper work needed. He even got one of the girls to escort me to the ‘Over-sized’ Luggage section. She was an English born Chinese girl, about as stupid as plank of wood. I tried to make polite conversation, but she couldn’t stop going on about how everyone that worked at the Airline Company was gay! “Like that guy that served you! Did you know he was gay??!” Dear o Dear. Anyway, when I dropped off my guitar and the pain experienced by the girls company had abated, I set off to my plane. After about a 20 minute walk, I arrived at the gate to a sight that left me in awe. The plane was massive! A four engine double-decker monster, probably capable of unholy speeds on the ground as it built up for lift-off. I’ve been on quite a few flights before, but never on one this size. As I walked onto the plane, to my surprise, they ushered me upstairs. I got to the top and turned to see a very smiley stewardess who, after taking my ticket, showed me to my place. The seat was enormous! Twice the size of a normal one and with enough leg room space to put a large dog kennel or maybe even a complete scalectric train track. There were seven rows of seats upstairs with 4 per row. I had no-one sitting next to me, not that I would have noticed anyway! I didn’t have a window at my seat, I had FOUR! On my left I had a little compartment to place all my stuff. A bit like an over-head luggage compartment (which I had as well) but to the side of me, which double up as a glass holder. One of the arm rests opened up and unfolded a table and the other unfolded a mini T.V. Both had their own little controls too. One side had the one for changing the channels and the other one had them for seat controls. Legs go up, legs go down, legs go up, legs go down. The whole seat opened up and tilted back to make a “nearly-bed” and you could adjust sections in your lower back for utmost comfort. Anyway, by the end of the trip, I’d managed to brake the “legs-go-down” button but I didn’t tell them anything. I just took the free blanket, toothbrush and mini toothpaste and skidaddled outta there! I think I pissed a few of my fellow passengers off with the noise but they were all pompous businessey type people anyway, rah-rahing on about percentages and flow-charts so I was quite smug at that one. I don’t think I got much more than an hours sleep with all the entertainment around. I kept going round for walks on the plane, chatting to fellow non-sleepers and feeling guilty as hell, seeing all the people down in Economy, sleeping very uncomfortably, and knowing that really, it should be me right there. Even the Business Class section downstairs, that seemed to be funnelled into the front of the plane wasn’t as cool as the one upstairs. We had a bar and first class service, lovely meals served by sexy waitresses and a choice of films to rival any ten-screen Odeon cinema!!! Apart from the fact they were all pretty old films ;-) Anyway, we arrived in Hong Kong in a blanket of cloud and saw nothing apart from the last few seconds of our landing. Hong Kong is pretty amazing. I ambled around for a while after checking in my guitar and shoulder bag overnight at the airport, but I was still buzzing from the flight. The more I looked at it, the more I kept thinking back to the guy at the check-in counter. Was the colour of my hair working to my benefit now! If there’s a moral to the story after all that then maybe its something like… you know what I’m gonna say: It pays to look gay!