DON'T FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS - YET.

Some eight years ago my company began a lot of work in Western Siberia. I remember one memorable flight I took – midwinter – to a rather bleak oil town. The airline that flew the route was a now long defunct ‘babyflot’ but its aircraft of choice was a YAK 40. A small tri-jet known to the Russian aviation cognoscenti as ‘the widow maker’.
Obviously we made it and landed – as my flights always seem to – at about 4 in the morning. Minus 35 or something equally daft outside, I seem to recall. Anyway no sooner had we landed and the lights gone on, than three guys in uniforms and fur hats walked through the plane offering we merry band of passengers a friendly dosvedanya. I dosvedanyad back of course and only when we got to the door of the plane did my pea brain register that they were the pilots. They fly, they land they go home. The stewardesses went too, leaving us shivering and in the dark to deplane ourselves.
I was reminded of this episode at Domodedovo airport last Sunday night as I tried to get to London on a British Airways flight. Waiting at the departure gate we saw the plane pull up to its stand on time, and for a few minutes I felt optimistic that we would leave in time for me to get the last train home in London. The lack of local ground staff and announcements should have told me otherwise – anyone who thinks no news is good news does not know Russia well. Silence means that something is being avoided and sure enough after 45 minutes or so it was announced that there was a delay ‘due to the servicing of an aircraft’. The definite/indefinite article does not work in Russian so watch out for the difference that ‘the’ or ‘a’ can make. In any case it was clear that it was our aircraft.
Sometime later there were still no BA staff –just a few giggling gate people and a bored-looking passport checker, but that was it. Requests for information proved pointless and the mood began to sour and deteriorate rather quickly.
After a suitable interval, the Captain himself, flanked by a couple of cabin attendants appeared at the gate. He explained that there was problem with a black box and it needed to be changed – if this could be done locally, we would be on our way soonest. The Russians in the passenger group were very impressed that the Captain had appeared and spoken so openly to us. I have always thought black boxes were red but it seems ‘black box’ is a term for any box on a plane full of kit that is, er, black. However, I digress.
Soon after the Captain had left, the local BA duty manager arrived and did whatever duty managers do. A few moments later – and this is the bit that really confused the Russians - the whole crew appeared with drinks and pretzels, (why not pork scratchings – it’s a British airline for God’s sake), for us. Both pilots acted as waiters and glass collectors in a British ‘all hands to the pumps’ kind of way. They were however vague about what this famous black box actually did despite much questioning from the newly pretzelled up passengers.
Just before the cut off time when the pilots needed to sleep, (have they never head of Red Bull), the local mechanic fixed whatever was wrong with the black box and off we went. BA also paid a taxi home for me.
So why is this of interest? There were three aspects of Russian behaviour on display. The first is status – this is very important for Russians and the idea of a pilot (very high status) appearing publically and effectively doing a PR job is totally alien – as was the waiter act. YAK pilots do not speak to passengers before or during the flight, let alone worry about the airline’s image. Secondly the issue of authority came up. The Russian BA manager did not appear at the gate even though one of her three daily flights was very late, because nobody told her to. The Captain, I was later told, had called her and asked her to come down. This submission to, acceptance of and desire for authority leads many foreign managers to the belief that Russians have no initiative. It’s not that really – they just expect to be told what to do. The third issue was patience – the Russians were waiting in silence- it was the Brits who were getting ratty and tapping their watches. Russian acceptance of things going wrong and the feeling they can do nothing, you see.
So in essence the Russians do the tech. bit and the British pacify the crowd.
I hope to see you on board one of our YAK 40s again soon.