In a prior article, I discussed [our unfortunate experience flying from Miami (MIA) to Skiathos (JSI)](https://onemileatatime.com/insights/disastrous-first-flight-family-four-mentally-recovering/). That article focused on our initial flight, which faced delays, cancellations, and a baggage predicament. Ah well.
Luckily, our Air France flights to Paris (CDG) and Vienna (VIE) were superb. We spent a night at the Moxy Vienna Airport, and the following morning, we boarded our Austrian Airlines flight to Skiathos. What should have been a standard 90-minute journey turned out to be quite the opposite…
Our (wonderful) flight attendant tumbled in the galley…
After a somewhat tiring trip leading up to that moment, we rose early on Saturday morning, confident that we would soon find ourselves in paradise. Our 707-mile flight was set to take off at 6:10 AM and arrive at 9:05 AM, factoring in a one-hour time adjustment, it was scheduled for 2 hours and 5 minutes, with an actual flight time of 1 hour and 30 minutes.
We sat in the first row of the aircraft, and the purser on this flight was a charming older gentleman. His sense of humor was outstanding, and I can’t recall a single announcement he made without cracking a joke (and let me emphasize that his jokes were well-received, as he generated constant laughter). Prior to takeoff, he quipped that our flight time to Skiathos would be 3 hours and 20 minutes… then he rectified himself, stating he was merely testing if passengers were attentive.
The captain was impressive as well — Miles spotted him during a restroom break and pointed out, “look papa, it’s the pilot!” The captain overheard and invited him to visit the cockpit upon landing, which thrilled Miles.
The flight went smoothly, we began our descent, the cabin was being prepared for landing, and we were set to touch down in Greece shortly. The approach grew quite bumpy, and the purser was finalizing cabin preparations.
Suddenly, the turbulence escalated from bad to worse. The lone flight attendant navigating the aisle swiftly secured herself in a business class seat, and just about simultaneously, the purser collapsed to the floor. We heard a loud grunt, followed by a thud as he slammed into the bulkhead, lying flat on his back mere inches from my… feet.
The other flight attendant let out an audible gasp, and everyone in the cabin wanted to assist, but it was clearly unsafe to rise. To clarify, he didn’t just fall a little; he was completely flat on his back in the galley. I feared he might have hit his head on the bulkhead, but he got up almost immediately and appeared completely fine. I still worried he might have a concussion without realizing it, but that seemed to be the end of that incident.
We then had to go around… and again…
With the flight attendants securely buckled in their jump seats, I thought that would wrap up the suspense, and we’d be landing soon. It’s worth noting that Skiathos Airport is somewhat of an aviation enthusiast’s dream due to the low approaches frequently witnessed, owing to the short runway.
We approached runway 1, and as we descended to about 1,500 feet, we executed a go around. While that’s still a significant altitude, we ascended quickly, enduring considerable bumps.
We climbed up and entered a holding pattern, during which the captain addressed us via the PA to explain the situation. He informed us that the weather in Skiathos was poor, and visibility at the airport fell below minimums right as we initiated our final approach, necessitating us to hold and wait for a while.
At this juncture, we were in a holding pattern for around 30 minutes before attempting another approach. I should mention that we were holding at roughly 4,000 feet, right within the clouds, so we were jostled around considerably, and visibility was almost nonexistent (one passenger seated a few rows back even became ill).
At this moment, I was thinking, “Alright, typically you have 30+ minutes of additional fuel plus enough to reach your diversion point, so if we don’t succeed this time, we might have to divert.”
This time we approached from the opposite direction, landing on runway 19 instead of runway 1, as visibility was somehow better in that direction. This