Flying to Albuquerque

I recently learned several things you don't want to see or hear when flying.

First off, when you are waiting for your plane to arrive at the gate, it's not comforting to see that the airline can't even run the digital status board, but has written your flight information on a large white paper and taped it to the screen. This seemed a bit odd to me.

Later, just after the plane has taken off, the pilot decides we need a thorough debriefing on our flight. I realized a pilot can indeed share too much information. He proceeds to tell us that our flight was delayed, because our original plane had mechanical issues. Also, he throws in this little tidbit - the navigation system on the plane is out, so we are doing things the old fashioned way. Excuse me? I'd rather not know my life is in the hands of a pilot with no electronic navigation and we are in a hand-me-down aircraft?

It was scheduled to be an hour and a half long flight, but 50 minutes into the flight the pilot announces we are beginning our descent. Apparently when you have a loaner plane and aren't hampered by that obnoxious navigation system, you can really put the hammer down and see what that plane can do. Once we were safely on the ground, I had the urge to kneel down and kiss the ground. This was an unusual flight, to say the least!