The Last Flight of Air Madrid — My Wildest Travel Story

It’s a bad sign when they board up the airplane the second you disembark

Johanna and I arrived at the airport ready to break about sixty laws of international travel. Our lawlessness was not out of malice or incompetence, but simply due to the fact that we didn’t feel like answering any questions; at least, not truthfully.

I was dripping wet from fever due to the bad case of food poisoning I’d contracted the night before. The culprit of my illness was a Pizza Hut deep dish meat lover’s monstrosity that I’d purchased at the Ovalo de Miraflores for S/. 15. Three hours before arriving at the airport, I’d thought I was going to die. I managed to sleep fifteen minutes before catching a cab to pick up Johanna.

Six months pregnant, Johanna shouldn’t have been flying, but her husband awaited her in Berlin. He’d flown on ahead three months earlier to finish up the fall semester of school shortly after their wedding. The wedding and the baby fell into the category of life events that are retroactively labeled as “surprises.” Having been privy to the whirlwind of events leading up to the present, I had a new comprehension for what it meant when people tilted their head sideways in reflection and chuckled when they began to wax nostalgic.

Johanna and Tobias had been married in a matrimonio collectivo, which was a group ceremony common in Peru, that had taken place, coincidentally, on Calle Berlin.

I’d arrived at the wedding early and stood outside the stadium while bride after bride pulled up in their gorgeous white dresses.

Some of them leaped from taxis.

Some of them leaped from combis.

They carried bouquets and veils and standing there observing was like the magical first day of winter when the snowflakes begin to fall.

Every one beautiful.

Every one different.

Tobias pulled me aside before the ceremony.

“Her family is angry that we’re getting married in a collectivo,” he said with a sheepish grin. “What’s the point of marrying a gringo if he can’t even afford a real wedding?”

“It’s always the same story,” I said, “everybody thinks you should spend more, but nobody ever offers to contribute any cash to the cause.”

By the time the ceremony started, there were maybe a hundred couples standing in the open gymnasium. It was one of the few gymnasium’s I’d seen with basketball hoops. The hoops had been lifted up into the rafters out of respect for the proceedings.

“Do the men want to get married?” the host said through a scratchy amplifier.

“Si,” came the muffled reply.

“I can’t hear you!”

“SI!” the men shouted again with greater enthusiasm.

“How about the women? Would the women like to get married?”

The whole thing was repeated with much fanfare. It was more like a wrestling match than a wedding.

When the ceremony was over, the audience in the bleachers spilled down into the crowd to party with the newlyweds. We drank champagne out of plastic glasses.

“This is terrible,” Tobias said with a laugh. “But it only cost S/. 50.”

“You can get married every year if you want,” I replied. “It makes more sense to throw the big party on the ten year anniversary.”

Looking around, it was clear that very few people were conscious or embarrassed by the low cost. There were a lot of happy faces, a lot of hopeful young people sharing a precious moment.

Best wedding ever.

Several months later, Tobias was growing concerned. Johanna was getting bigger by the day, and the trip from Lima to Berlin was no picnic even for a non-pregnant person.

“She’s never flown before,” Tobias said on the phone.

“Really?”

“Nope, and she’s never been outside the country.”

It didn’t take me long to pounce upon an idea.

“Hey, how about if I travel with her?”

“What?”

“Yeah, my visa is about to expire and I need to do a border hop. How about if I come with Johanna to Germany and you show me around for a couple weeks?”

“Really?”

“Sure!”

“That would be wonderful!”

Right away I found myself looking for tickets. Johanna and I went to every shady travel agency in all of Peru. We finally found some round trip seats from Lima to Madrid for only $385. The trick was getting to Europe, once there you can get plane tickets throughout the continent for thirty or forty bucks.

The discount tickets were with Air Madrid. I’d never heard of them, but I could take anything if it got me to Europe for under four hundred dollars.

“Um,” the travel agent said, “you better bring some sandwiches.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Air Madrid isn’t all that big on amenities.”

“Ok.”

“And bring some liquid too, they don’t serve any drinks.”

“Really? Isn’t it like a fifteen hour flight?”

“Well, why do you think the price is so inexpensive? They keep it low by saving on costs.”

“They can’t afford fifty cents a passenger for a soda?”

“Between you and me, I think it’s more a matter of the money they make on the storage space. Who knows what they’re smuggling over.”

I decided I didn’t want to learn any more.

For the next couple weeks every time we mentioned Air Madrid people groaned.

“Bring some sandwiches.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

“Also, don’t be surprised if the planes are really old.”

The most troubling comments came from one of Johanna’s friends. As she talked I could tell she was making Johanna nervous, but she chose to ignore all my hand signals to cease and desist the line of conversation.

“You should be aware that Air Madrid doesn’t have the rights to any of the good air routes.”

“What does that mean?” Johanna asked.

“It means the ride is going to be bumpy.”

“Enough,” I said finally, “It will be fine!”

But pulling into the airport, it suddenly didn’t seem like it was going to be fine. Suddenly it seemed like I was going to purge everything within my body from the kneecaps to the eyeballs. All the liquid was already gone from the fever, a weakness had settled into my bones.

I hefted Johanna’s two big suitcases out of the taxi and lurched in a daze towards the main lobby. I’d only brought a small backpack. I figured that Johanna was more in need of a large baggage allowance than I was since she was leaving her home country, possibly forever.

As we pushed open the doors, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her pack the bags and I didn’t know what could possibly be in them. For all I knew, they were filled with bombs and cocaine. I shrugged. I was too delirious from food poisoning to be found guilty of anything.

At least I hoped so.

We shuffled up to the ticket booth.

“Where are you headed?”

“Madrid.”

The ticket agent looked at Johanna.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“How many months?”

It seems like kind of an intrusive question, but airlines have no qualms about asking it.

“I’m four months pregnant,” Johanna replied without blinking an eye.

I was impressed by how good a liar she was.

Most airlines prohibit travel for women who are six months pregnant. I’d brought this up to Johanna, but she had dismissed it with a wave.

“I’ll just get my doctor to write something saying I’m only four months pregnant,” she said without the slightest hint of concern.

She proceeded to produce this document for the ticket lady.

The lady looked at it with suspiciously pursed lips, but what could she do?

“Fine,” she said eventually, “are you two married?”

“Yup,” we replied.

Again, it wasn’t true, but we’d agreed it was easier to just say we were married than try to explain the whole convoluted story of how we had come to be traveling together to every idiot with a badge who felt inclined to ask. In all likelihood, this minor deception was probably a third degree international felony, but the last thing I wanted to do was get into suspicious conversations with a hundred border patrol agents. It was just easier to tell them a “likely” story than the actual truth.

The ticket lady tapped away at her console.

“Anything hazardous in the bag?” she said looking at me.

“No,” I said.

“You were there when it was packed?”

“Yes.”

Finally, as if deciding that she couldn’t in good conscience make poor Johanna wait around while standing on the hard floor any longer, she handed over our tickets.

“Gate 34-A,” she said with a honey sweet smile.

“Thanks, you’ve been awesome.”

We grabbed the tickets and went on our way.

Why the heck did it always feel like I was sneaking through checkpoint Charlie every time I went on vacation?

We made it through about four more checkpoints and security screenings before finally making our way onto the plane.

The rumors were true.

The plane was old.

I struggled to get our bags into the overhead compartments. The compartments looked like imitation press-board with a varnish oak overlay that had gone out of style back in 1968. The varnish was was peeling off in yellowish strips, and the brass knobs had been stained black from decades of use.

Pushing the bag into the overhead compartment, I swooned and steadied myself by halfway collapsing onto the seat in front of me. Johanna shuffled up against the window only to realize that the pane of glass had been removed in favor of a sheet of plastic held in place by duct tape.

I peered at this more closely and decided I must be imagining it. The plane couldn’t possibly be held together by duct tape.

I collapsed into my seat.

The weary minions shuffled by, slowly filling the vessel until it was bursting at the seams. When the final passenger had gotten on board, the stewardess signaled to three able-bodied men and, for some inexplicable reason, me.

“Can you help me get the door closed?” she asked.

I stood up in confusion and limped over to the door. It was a large, metallic contraption that was as awkward to handle as the showcase showdown wheel on the Price is Right.

“We’re going to have to give it a slam,” the stewardess said, “it never likes to close right.”

“Why is that?”

“The latch is bent.”

“How did the latch get bent?’

But she ignored me and started counting as we all scrambled for a hold on the door.

“One…two…three…”

We swung it with a heave and it bounced against the fuselage only to rattle back into space. I found myself drifting over the precipice. Down below, a guy was airing up the tires with a bicycle pump.

“One…two…three…”

Again failure.

“C’mon boys, put your back into it!”

We tried a few more times, eventually getting the door to lodge more or less into place with a shaky ‘thunk.’ However, the seal didn’t appear at all secure as I thought I could see daylight peeking through in a number of places.

“Um, how will the plane pressurize…”

But the stewardess cut me off before I could complete my sentence.

“Thanks for your assistance sir, you can take your seat now.”

“But…”

I swiveled to look at her and was cut off mid-sentence by the authoritarian glare in her eyes. Her tone of voice said, ‘thanks for helping me with the door.’ But her body language said, ‘if you don’t get in your seat right now I’m going to call the air marshal over to fit you with a ball gag.’ I smiled weakly and headed over to my seat. As I sat down, I noticed the stewardess was reinforcing the door by fastening the handle to the wall with a bungee cord.

“Tighten up your seat belt Johanna,” I said.

The plane wheezed and hurled itself down the runway only to stumble up into the sky like a little old lady trying to commit suicide by throwing herself up a flight of stairs. I leaned back and clutched the slippery metal of the seat rest. It flexed beneath my grip. The sensation was not reassuring.

Johanna didn’t seem bothered by the take-off in the least. I found that encouraging until I realized that she’d never flown before. For all she knew, this was the way all airlines were run.

I decided not to ruin her illusion.

Bells and whistles went off at regular intervals. Occasionally Johanna would look at me.

“Is that normal?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.”

The plane bounced along between clouds, sometimes dropping ten or twelve feet at a time. The wooden overhead cabinets opened and spilled their wares down upon us.

“It’s like carnival!” Johanna shrieked with glee. She then started to dance in her seat, full pregnant belly and all.

I managed a smile through my pale skin and drenched features.

The sweat began to inundate my seat. The soft foam padding became engorged. I wiped my brow and got a third degree burn on the tips of my fingers.

How long could this go on?

We were several hours into the flight before the fever finally broke. I didn’t feel any better after, it was more like I’d been divided and reborn as two opposite but equal halves. Some of my faculties seemed to have been returned to me, however, so that was reassuring. Also, I stopped sweating.

I looked around with a new awareness and perspective.

I gazed out the window and made brief eye contact with a duck that was passing our vessel. I offered a weak wave. The duck returned it. I leaned back and blacked out.

The plane lumbered on into the night, gliding on stiff winds above the torrential waves of the Atlantic ocean.

The next time I gained consciousness, the plane was motionless.

What had happened?

Had we crashed?

Was I dead?

“Time to go,” Johanna said with a smile.

“What?”

“We’ve landed,” she continued, “That was easy.”

I rose to my feet and tried to pull my clammy clothing away from my skin. We were alone, the plane was deathly silent.

“Where are the other passengers?”

“They got off already, I thought you could use the extra rest.”

I grunted.

Baggage in hand, we passed through the door. Standing outside was an official looking character with a shiny silver badge.

“Are you two the last ones?” he barked.

“Yes.”

“Good!”

He then slammed the door shut and put a big yellow and black sticker across the window.

“Condemned!” it read.

“What’s going on?”

“Air Madrid has been officially shut down for failure to maintain their aircraft.”

With that, he pulled a hammer out of a nearby bucket and began nailing further notices into the curved outer wall of the fuselage.

“But how am I going to get back to Lima?” I asked.

The official stopped his frenzied hammering and handed me an envelope.

“By court order, Air Madrid has been forced to supply you with tickets on a competing airline. I believe it’s LAN. Please accept our apologies if there are any inconveniences with the date.”

I looked at the ticket. The date was the same, but the flight was leaving three hours later.

“That’s no problem at all.”

The official saluted me with the hammer and then turned back to his labors.

We walked up the tunnel in quest of the baggage claim.

It’s always a miracle when you find your bags, but our next hurdle awaited us. Our flight from Madrid to Berlin wasn’t for 10 hours.

“What should we do?” I asked. “Do you want me to put you up in a hotel?”

I made it clear that I didn’t expect her to share a room with me, but Johanna didn’t like the idea of incurring the expense.

“Don’t be silly. There are some benches right over there,” she said perkily.

Johanna waddled over to the benches, rolled herself onto a couple seats, and made a pillow out of one of her bags.

I watched her with admiration. Apparently her life in Peru had allowed her to develop some pretty awesome traveling skills.

As impressed as I was with Johanna, I was irritated by the design of the bench. It was one of those hard, plastic jobs with individual seats comprised of curves and valleys that are meant to form fit your behind. Each one of the seats was separated by a large gap. You find these benches in airports throughout the world, and for the thousandth time I cursed the designer who was responsible for them.

Why would they make benches that way as opposed to a solid beam you could comfortably recline on?

Was it really so hard to anticipate that people would be forced to sleep on the airport benches at some point?

Johanna was out almost instantly so I tried to make myself comfortable on the floor. I leaned against one of the bags and watched the people walk by.

A couple of them seemed to have their nose up.

Most likely they assumed I had made the choice to force my young, pregnant wife to sleep on a miserable, uncomfortable plastic bench in the Madrid airport.

I didn’t even know how to begin correcting their misconception.

Johanna had fallen asleep without any problem.

I leaned back and slept too.

We awoke in time for our next flight, a pleasant little jaunt up to Berlin. This time the airplane was well maintained and purred like a kitten. Johanna didn’t like it.

“This isn’t anywhere near as fun as the last flight!” she complained.

We arrived and Tobias was waiting for us at the airport with his family.

“How was the journey?”

“They shut down Air Madrid forever.”

“I heard that,” Tobias said, his face going white. “Other than that, how was it?”

“Uneventful,” I said. “Which way is the shower?”

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Check out this story from P. Venkat Raman over at Taking Off.