On the road again

This week I am in Paris and then Dubai doing the good work of Microsoft.

My seat on Northwest lost power about an hour or so into the flight, so I lost my AC power and my recline power, which became quite a process for the flight attendant.

The AC outlet on the floor, conveniently located such that a power cord can be easily stepped on and yanked from the outlet, was really loose. If I jiggled the cord I occasionaly got power. Clearly there was some sort of short in there that just fried the whole system for the seat.

Now the flight attendant was in full debug mode. She told me to take the battery out of my notebook and plug it in again, since the battery "was too much of a strain" on the airplane's electrical system. Really? That's comforting. As expected, that did nothing. The wiring is shot on the plug.

She "reset" the system and then asked me to wait five minutes before I tried the seat controls again. I did and, not surpisingly, the seat still didn't work.

"Let me try it," she said.

Oh geez - you mean if you push the button the maybe it will work? Now I know how my wife feels!

More power cycles and seat movements and finally I just said I would live with it - I had an extra battery slice for the my Thinkpad X41 and my Portable Media Center was fully charged. There's a manual override in the armrest so I could jigger the reclining issue on my own.

She was kind enough to give me a voucher for some Northwest miles so kudos for that customer service. After the flight I heard from my colleagues that their seat power was flaky as well (Airbus 330)but they didn't get the miles - they need to work on their kvetching skills.

Comments

[Bob Danna]

Pete,

Thats truly amazing! Your seat electrical system on an AIRBUS aircraft controls the electrical Power system totally! SCARY! Say I wonder what happens when the tolite's stop working (The FRENCH Invention AIRBUS)

Have a Great trip and a sfae flight home.

Bob

[Neil]

Pete:

This story should be posted on seatguru.com. It would help the rest of us avoid these wonderful planes...

Safe travels.

Neil