Rereading the ramblings of this morning makes my head hurt. The last 28 hours (and not the miscalculated 31 at 7am – that should only have been 17) have been some of the craziest of my life. Prior to this I’ve only had one other incident of travel blues, but that only impacted one leg. This time I don’t think any stone was left unturned.
Morgantown to Dulles was not that bad, other than the turbulence on a prop. We loaded early, left early, and arrived early. Too bad that was the end of the good news, as the summer storms that pop up frequently enveloped the EastCoast. From LaGuardia to Miami, planes were being held left and right. The plane carrying us from DC to Charlotte was 2 hours late leaving Jacksonville, and by the time it got to us the pop-ups threatened our capital. And once we were clear to go Charlotte went on lockdown themselves. Two hours later, at 9:30pm and Charlotte nowhere near reopening we were sent scurrying away to rebook elsewhere.
Experienced travelers know that Dante missed this particular level of Hell – the customer service rebooking desk. After almost two hours I went off for some version of rest after learning the following:
- It took roughly 1/2 hour for every United flight to book through this evening, and we hadn’t completed 1/4th the line.
- It kicks ass to have a corporate travel service, as it got me onto one of the few direct flights this morning after we learned about the lack of flights.
- Airlines have gotten out of the restitution business by turning over cheap accommodations to a third party company, and I have to admit satisfaction at receiving a Hyatt suite for less than half the price I would have paid through my service.
- Never get caught in line behind a pair of 50-something women with technology. These two tied up one agent for the better part of one hour, expecting service that no one else was getting while furiously swirling their Iphones & Crackberries.
- I will maintain my policy of never, ever checking if I can help it. Thousands of travelers were sent to hotels and airport benches without a change of clothes. United decided it was too much like customer service to unload checked bags to stranded passengers, so the bags were being sent sometime today to whatever destination United thought appropriate. Sucked for the people on their way to Charlotte last night, only to cut their losses and go back home to San Francisco. They might get their bags back before the week is up.
I kept the string of travel miseries alive today, first by a mess of my own doing. In my weariness last night and zombie-ism this morning (plus the “intelligence” of a TSA agent), I ended up at the gates without either checking in or having a boarding pass. Oops. Once my reassignment was confirmed I, and a fellow Muslim passenger who made a similar mistake, got sent back to TSA for a re-screening. And let me tell ya – getting a “Gate Selected” check is some serious VIP treatment. All that was missing was the Blue Glove Treatment. Didn’t get the courtesy of a rechaound, although I now know that there’s no weird sediments of any toxic materials in my bags, cell phone, laptop, wallet, PC cables, shoes, notebooks……To top everything off, our 9:20 flight was delayed until 10am in order to allow the flight crew ample time to rest. FAA regs. The friendly skies.
I’ve heard all the horror stories of air travel before, and while I have mostly escaped the fun I can now count myself amongst the many. I think it’s all the result of going away froma plan that works. I normally fly US Air from Pittsburgh to Charlotte, with the occasional stop at Reagan. The only other time I missed a flight was when I tried to get cute and booked my return trip through Richmond to save money. Got sick on the first leg and slept over in Virginia. This time I eschewed Pittsburgh for United at Morgantown/Dulles, and while the first leg was fine all hell broke loose. Things started returning to normal when I (gasp) booked a US Air flight. The moral of the story – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it? There’s also the idea that since I’ve moved to our new team at work two of my three trips went belly-up. Apparently I have air-karma seriously pissed at me.
What kinds of hell can Wednesday bring???
