Here’s a refreshing note on the state of flight delays: Apparently even the giants of professional basketball are not immune to travel inconveniences.
According to ESPN, after their series-clinching win in the NBA Western Conference semifinals Monday night, the San Antonio Spurs had hoped to fly to Los Angeles immediately after the game to get ready for the next playoff round against the Lakers… only fate had different plans for the team.
Turns out the Spurs experienced something we mere mortals face on an ongoing basis when flying the not-always friendly skies—a delay.
The team was reportedly forced to spend the night on their grounded plane in New Orleans, where they had just beaten the Hornets 91-82 because their chartered jet had maintenance problems.
The charter carrier Champion Air, which flies 14 NBA teams, including the Lakers and the Spurs, is going out of business (allegedly due to rising fuel costs and a slumping economy) and will cease flying at the end of May, according to news reports. However, the company’s contract with the NBA is still good through the end of the season, which is why the basketball stars were on the Champion flight Monday night.
According to NBA officials, Champion is an ideal charter service for the oversized pro athletes because six of its planes are fitted with 59 seats–all first class–which make for comfy flying… only I doubt any of the players thought they would have to spend the night in the seats following a big game.
To make matters worse (for Champion), the charter jet company was recently raked over the coals in an article by the San Antonio News-Express in a report titled “Concern Rises over Spurs Safety.” In the article the paper maintains that the Boeing 727 jets the team has been flying for the past five years are old and that the airline has been running on “a taut financial shoestring.” Citing Federal Aviation Administration records, the paper reported that Champion also racked up “hundreds of safety and maintenance incidents.”
In the end the Spurs made it to Los Angeles just fine, albeit quite a bit later than they had hoped. But, hey, now they know what air travel is like for the rest of us.
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