With all the stresses that await us when we fly, it becomes a lot easier to react intensely when things happen that we’d normally treat as a minor inconvenience.
Whether our flight is delayed or we missed it altogether, the rage that builds when some poor soul breaks the bad news to us can stay with us for a surprisingly long time.
However, for one passenger, this anger had a very good reason to suddenly transform into relief.
On Sunday, Antonis Mavropoulos of Greece wrote a Facebook post detailing his lucky day.
According to Buzzfeed News , Mavropoulos owns a recycling company and was traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for an environmental conference.
However, to get there, he first had to catch a connecting flight in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
He was already feeling stressed because he had less than 30 minutes to catch this plane.
As he wrote in his post, he was supposed to meet a connection ambassador to help make this easier, but he apparently rushed out of his first plane too quickly for this person to locate him.
By the time he made it to the gate, the boarding had closed and he saw the last few passengers entering the tunnel to the plane.
He recalled yelling for them to let him in, but staff wouldn’t grant his request.
He said this was partially because he hadn’t checked a suitcase, which would have led the flight crew to wait an extra 10-15 minutes for him because they’d be expecting him.
Although he was disappointed, he said the airport staff were nice and helped arrange for another flight set to take off later that morning.
As he wrote , they also apologized for the inconvenience and gave him access to a business lounge while he waited.
However, he soon discovered that he wouldn’t be able to board this flight either.
This time, it was because two security officers prevented his boarding for security reasons and escorted him to their supervisor.
Since he didn’t know why this was happening, he said this inspired “intense protests” from him.
However, this supervisor gently told him not to protest and suggested that Mavropoulos should instead thank God.
This is because he was the only passenger who hadn’t boarded Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which he was told was “missing.”
As CNN reported , the plane had crashed minutes after taking off and claimed the lives of 157 people.
At first, Mavropoulos couldn’t believe what this security officer was telling him, but his tone told him that he was absolutely serious.
They then interviewed Mavropoulos to determine who he was and why he hadn’t boarded because it seemed odd that he was the only person who hadn’t boarded the fatal flight.
While they went to verify what he told them, he learned exactly what happened.
When he realized what he had just barely missed, he collapsed.
He also made sure to contact his family and assure them that he was not on the downed plane.
As he wrote his post, he considered that had it not been for the short connection and the fact that he didn’t check a bag, he would not be alive today.
As he put it, “”I’m posting because I want to tell everyone that the invisible threads of luck — the unplanned circumstances — knit the web of which our life is caught on. There are millions of small threads that we usually never feel — but if one breaks that whole web unwinds instantaneously.”
h/t: Facebook | Antonis Mavropoulos
