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The Other Half UP IN THe AIr

It’s a high-flying feeling to be loved — but another altogether when you discover

your soul mate on the same flight, thousands of feet above solid ground

By Karen ann Monsy

I’s true: passengers travelling by plane probably do tend to be more of the super-defensive, “Stand back! On guard!” variety than those using any other form of

transport. They are not entirely with-out reason either. One doesn’t need to dig very deep into air travel history to understand why many fliers teeter on the wings of paranoia whenever they’re within range of a plane. You want to believe your co-passenger is a genu-inely nice person — not a charmer with psychotic intentions.

Perhaps it’s a combination of the many horror stories we’ve heard as well as that familiar intonation of our folks as kids (“Don’t talk to strangers!”) that’s still ringing in our ears, but it’s no wonder that the majority of fliers today offer no more than a swift smile and then pointedly bury themselves in a book, loud music or deep sleep for the rest of the flight.

It’s not all evil and terror written across the skies though. Up in the air, people have still found love. Here, we speak to those who made the magic happen, long after their feet had left the ground.

For better, For worseTheirs is quite the fairy tale, Fred and Tina Rocque’s. She’s “told it a million times, but every time feels like the first time” — and it all started with a 50p coin (plus a ticket on the same plane, of course).

It was Mumbai-born Tina’s birthday weekend and she was flying to Goa on business when she met Fred at the lo-cal airport. Fred, a Dubai-based Indian journalist then, had approached her to request a 50p coin in order to use the pay phone. Only it wasn’t 50p anymore but a rupee, as Tina duly informed him. They got to talking — for half an hour — before Fred remembered his phone call again.

On the flight, Tina recognised Fred’s seat partner as an old friend of her dad’s and exchanged seats so she could sit next to Fred. “I have to say there was absolutely no [physical] attraction whatsoever,” she says, first off. “But he was a very interesting person and had an excellent sense of humour.” When they landed, Tina gave him a ride into town (it was raining cats and dogs), he wished her happy birthday in advance and they exchanged busi-ness cards. It was July 15, 1988.

“A few weeks later, my assistant was going through my cards and she ex-claimed how all of them were travel-related except for this one guy, who was a journalist,” Tina recalls. “That’s when I remembered Fred and offered

to introduce him to her because he’d come across as a really nice guy. She wasn’t interested so I decided I would write to him instead. The date was 8/8/88. And if you’ll believe it, Fred was in Dubai writing a letter to me on that very same day: August 8, 1988!”

What started out as a two-page letter every week — this was before the age of the email — soon became “two ten-page letters a day”. By December, they had exchanged about 200 letters each. “I don’t know where it turned from being friends with a sense of humour to being romantic,” Tina muses out loud.

That year, when Fred moved to Bombay for two months, they started going out — and in the end, it was Tina who proposed to him. “He won’t dis-pute it,” she assures, laughing. The couple got married the following year in 1989. It’s been 23 years since and they have a son, Adam.

“But that fairy tale is soon coming to an end,” Tina says, softly. Five months ago, while watering the garden at their home in Ontario, Canada, Fred collapsed from a cardiac arrest. Tina found him in the garden 10 minutes later but it was too late. His brain cells were so damaged from the lack of oxygen that even though they got his

heartbeat and breathing going again, he’s currently surviving only in a veg-etative state.

His wife, now 53, visits Fred, 58, every day. She talks to him and holds him but gets no response. There is no self-pity as Tina speaks; her voice does not waver even once and her strength, coursing through the phone line from more than 6,000 miles away, is almost tangible. “It’s especially hard because we did everything together. I can’t walk into a supermarket to buy onions with-out thinking of him. But it’s all in God’s hands now. We can only hope.”

on a highThe first time Ohio-born Konrad Emrich met his wife-to-be Kellie was on a 7am plane to Milwaukee, Wiscon-sin, almost ten years ago — but he still remembers one of his initial impres-sions of her at the time: cocky.

“I’d put in my ear plugs and was getting ready to sleep when she com-mented on a book I had in the seatback in front of me. She’d apparently read the book for her Master’s degree, which I thought was a pretty cocky thing to men-tion,” says the 39-year-old, laughing.

The book kicked off the conversation though, and the two ended up chatting

What started as a two-page letter every week soon became “two ten-page letters a day”. By December, they [Tina and Fred] had exchanged about 200 letters each... In the end, it was Tina who proposed to him. “He won’t dispute it,” she assures, laughing

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The Other Half UP IN THe AIr

135 metres

The London Eye is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and is London’s highest public vantage point, standing tall at

It was a bit nerve-wracking, walking around London on a beautiful summer day with an engagement ring in my pocket... But it actually went very well — Konrad Emrich

the entire 45-minute flight. Ironically, it was also Valentine’s Day and Konrad recalls both of them joking about how they didn’t care much for the special day, seeing as neither were in a rela-tionship at the time.

Back on the ground, business cards were exchanged and, when they hit it off at an after-hours meet a week later, they began going out till Konrad popped the question and they were married in June 2003.

The proposal was the stuff of movies, too — the heart-warming sort... “We had flown to London for my work,” narrates the project manager for an Ohio-based IT company. “Kellie had accompanied me on the trip and the plan was to propose to her atop the London Eye. It was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, walking around London on a beautiful summer day with an engagement ring in my pock-et,” he admits. “That was risky. But it actually went very well. We’d walked around the area the previous evening and already experienced a ride on the Eye. But when we went back on Sun-day, the line was over an hour-and-a-half long.”

Kellie wasn’t keen on hanging around at all but eventually stayed on Konrad’s insistence (“there was no Plan B!”). When the couple finally got in the carriage, Konrad roped in a com-plete stranger there and quickly brought him up to speed, asking him to take pictures.

“My wife actually got a little upset with me because I was sitting there talking to a complete stranger instead of admiring the view with her. So she was actually going at me a bit, minutes before I proposed. We got to the top of the London Eye, I got down on one knee and proposed, the whole carriage erupted with applause and cheers — and that was that,” he finishes, simply. “The guy got the pictures too!”

He used to be one of those individu-als who don’t like to talk on a plane, Konrad says. Meeting Kellie changed that… a bit. “I hadn’t fully engaged my fellow travellers much up until that point. But I’ve learned to open up a little bit to people on planes now.”

Thinking back about what it took for the couple (who have two children) to meet, Konrad is tempted to believe in fate or destiny. He used to travel about 32-35 weeks a year for work, usually taking the Tuesday flight out. That day, Konrad took the Thursday morning flight out ,instead.

“I wasn’t normally on that flight. Plus, Kellie and I soon found we had quite a few mutual connections (one of her college roommates was my

parents’ best friend’s daughter, for instance). Inevitably, we may have met someday but that was apparently the day on the plane.”

going the distanceFor 39-year-old Malaysian Roshan Thiran, his future wife Emelia was not only on board the same flight at the

same time; she also happened to be a fellow scholarship student bound for the same university as he. There was no special connection at the time, he clarifies; he only remembers her as be-ing very quiet. “We’d never met before but I must have struck up a con-versation first,” he says. “I hadn’t flown long distance for a long time so I was

busy talking to almost everybody on the flight that day.”

On campus, as the year wore on and groups were formed (as they so typi-cally do in university), there were about 3-4 of them from the same coun-try who ended up spending a lot of time with each other, Roshan explains. Emelia was one of the friends in his group. “We started going out only 3-4 years later, after we’d gotten to know each other. After graduating, I stayed on to work in the US and she went back to Malaysia.”

And while there’s nothing easy about long distance relationships, the couple continued theirs. “She was my first real girlfriend (and vice versa for her) so we never really explored outside of each other,” he continues.

“I came back from the States in 1999 and in early 2001, I took her out to a restaurant and proposed.” Nothing as dramatic as going down on one knee, he laughs. But it’s still a good story he hopes to tell the kids someday.

Currently, the CEO at Leaderonom-ics, a social enterprise that focuses on leadership development, Roshan is always in favour of forging new con-nections and building bridges. There are two reactions Roshan says he gen-erally gets from fellow passengers on a plane: they’re either pleasant and open to striking up a good conversation — or they’re alarmed that you’re even addressing them.

His top tip? Just smile. “A smile breaks all kinds of ice. You don’t even have to say too much. It’ll disarm peo-ple and get through any negativity or defensiveness there is. One thing al-ways leads to another.”

And doesn’t he know.

‘Plane’ crazyBut what about those who meet some-one for the first time on a flight and feel a definite connection — only to land on solid ground without a name or con-tact? For some, the regret could eat them alive.

Well, thanks to a fairly new ‘missed connections’ website, you can finally stop wallowing in your self-pity. Syd-ney-based Australian Will Scully-Pow-er, 31, started WeMetOnAPlane.com last year because, well, that’s where he met his girlfriend Maia — on a plane — and that’s where he realised he al-most missed her too.

“I was coming back from a trip to Thailand and we were delayed because of another connecting flight,” Will says. “As the final door closed, I looked up and saw Maia walking down the aisle before taking the empty seat next to me. She leaned over and said, ‘I know what you’re thinking... that I’m one of

$22 billion

Flight delays aren’t uncommon. But the US Federal

Aviation Administration estimates flight delays annually

cost airlines about

STRONG TIES: (top) Fred and Tina Rocque — the story of how the couple got to-gether is an oft-told tale; (above) with their son Adam

LOVE AND LIFE: (clockwise from top left) Konrad Emrich proposes to Kellie atop the London Eye; Kellie reacts; the couple with their two children

A smile breaks all kinds of ice. You don’t even have to say too much... It’ll disarm people and get through any negativity or defensiveness there is — Roshan Thiran

those painful passengers you’re going to have to deal with for the rest of the trip.” For Will, that’s what sparked the conversation. Their chat lasted the rest of the nine-hour flight.

When they landed, Maia wrote out her name and email address for Will and promised to get in touch if she was ever in town, before parting ways.

She’d never been to Sydney before — having grown up in New Zealand — even though her brother lived there. “That was that, I thought,” Will says. “But three months later, out of the blue, she emails saying she’s visiting Sydney after all… It does happen!” (Maia later ended up moving to Aus-tralia and currently resides there.)

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The Other Half UP IN THe AIr

Did you know?There are about

4,400 people across the world

that search for the phrase ‘met on a plane’ on Google

every month

SUCCESS STORY: (above and top) Will Scully-Power with Maia, who he met on board a flight from Thailand in 2011

“It made me wonder though: what happens if people don’t get to share contact details? How do you find the other?” Will asks. “You can’t even look them up on Facebook if you don’t have a name. I thought perhaps no one was looking for people they’d met on a plane.” His research of Google’s search data, however, told him he was flying in the wrong direction: there were about 4,000 global searches a month — and no blog or website to help those ‘lost souls’ reconnect.

But that was before. To date, over 2,000 stories have been shared on WeMetOnAPlane.com from all over the world — including people who’ve flown either from or to Dubai. Will says most of the traffic outside the US is from Europe, specifically Germany. “For some reason, the Germans have a huge interest in searching for people they met on a plane!”

But don’t laugh. The website got its first success story of a reconnection just four months after its launch. So as Will would say, these things happen!

Discretion is yours but clam up completely up in the air and chances are you may lose out on a potential emp-loyer, a best friend going forward... maybe even love at first flight.

karen@khaleejtimes.com

What happens when you don’t have the details? You can’t search Facebook without a name — Will Scully-Power

COMMITTED: (above) Roshan Thiran with his wife Emelia on their wedding day; (top) the couple with their children