reminds me of...
Me and some friends took a last-minute charter flight once from Istanbul to Cairo on a crusty old white-label 737 where there were no seats allocated to us when we checked in which seemed a bit weird. It all became clear about 10mins before departure when there was a turkish and arabic announcement and all of a sudden the departure "lounge" doors were thrown open and all the local women hitched up their skirts and started running across the tarmac, fighting each other up the stairs to secure seating for themselves and their loved ones.
After the carnage died down there was another announcement and the men charged off along with us foreigners, and another scrum ensued. When we got inside the cabin it was absolute chaos. Oversized bags all over the shot, people yelling and fighting over seats, stuff falling out of overhead compartments, stuff that was NEVER gonna fit in them no matter how hard the owners pushed. Cabin crew doing stuff all to help the situation other than contribute to the cacophony.
At take-off the machine was so heavy it shook and rattled and wobbled down the runway and I was sure we weren't gonna get airborne. Miraculously we did at which point everyone seemed to breath a sigh of relief. When we landed in Cairo the tension was high and when we touched down and rolled to taxi speed all the PAX burst out in cheers, whistles and clapping.
Was quite an experience. We probably should have gotten off and taken a scheduled flight but back-packers will be back-packers.
Good times
