US Where?

Well, it has been awhile. My apologies. Life has taken a pleasant, if busy turn since Pride, and I just haven’t been putting any effort into the blog. A number have people have been needling me, so I thought I’d get back to it. Some also said that my best pieces come when I am passionately opining. So as I sit on a runway in Philadelphia, I thought I’d strike while the iron is hot. Y’all are the first to know that, after my return trip…

www.erieairport.com/ gallery/usair.jpg

I am never flying on USAir again.

Let’s remember, I grew up and went to college around snow, and I am used to delays. But this has been, without question, the worst flying experience of my life.

I was supposed to be on a red-eye from San Francisco to Philly last night, with a connecting flight this morning to Erie. In the interest of full disclosure, I was running a bit behind – I had planned to leave my apartment by 2000, but by the time I had watered the plants and checked the toaster oven twice, it was 2030. No problem, I still got to the new SFO Long Term Parking by a little before 2100. The shuttle was slow, but I was in the airport by about 2105.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure (can I just write IOFD and coin a new web abbreviation?), I for some reason got it in my brain that I was flying Northwest, and blew a few minutes figuring out why they didn’t have an e-ticket for me. Regardless, I was in the USAir line by 2115. And that’s when it began. Or, more to point, when absolutely nothing happened.

The line did not move. For a good 10-15 minutes. Noone came out to ask if anyone was trying to catch the rapidly approaching flight to Philly. Every coach e-ticket station was full, and noone was taking luggage (but first class had 3 agents – I guess you get what you pay for). People, who are in general a good group, were moving aside to let more people at least check in.

Like me – I scanned my Delta Skymiles Card (foreshadowing), entered my reservation number (which I had to download from my Blackberry, because I never needed it with, oh, say, DELTA), and got a screen that basically said “Screw you, it’s too late for you to check in here. Ask an agent for help.” So I flagged down one of the agents, who had finally deigned to help the cattle bound for coach, who made me wait again. When I finally got to explain my predicament, she said it was too late to check a bag, and would it fit in the overhead bins. My 15 y.o. American Tourister from before they invented roll-aways? Of course not. Apparently, that was too much for her, so she told me to wait, again, while she helped another person.

I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she realized he was also trying to get to Philly (Syracuse, actually. He was a nice guy, may have been family, and we commiserated a bit). Unfortunately, they had screwed up his first name on his tickets, so his problem was arguably more complex than mine. So, I waited while she helped him, He got sent to the gate, but told that he would get a seat assignment at the gate. He actually said, “Will they hold the flight and let us on, or is this just a big waste of time.” She said they’d let us on. You know where this is going.

Then she turned back to me, got me a boarding pass in about 30 seconds, and took my bag, saying I would probably have to pick it up in Erie, which seemed odd, since that is what I usually do. But I let that go. I assumed she meant it might not get there at the same time as I did (more foreshadowing, with an element of discomfort).

On to security, which was not that busy. Except for one woman, who was crying hysterically that she couldn’t find her bag. She kept trying to run back through the check point, which enraged the TSA folks to no end. In the end, it was right where it should have been, ½ under a piece of luggage. No big deal, but it ate up another 5 minutes.

Once through the metal detector myself, I bolted, shoes untied and beltless, to my gate – naturally the last one in the terminal. On arrival, I found my Syracuse bound friend knocking pathetically on the door to the jetway. To my shock, someone answered the door, looked at out tickets, and said, “You guys don’t have seats. You need to see the gate agent.”

“There isn’t anyone else at the desk for this gate.”

“Then you need to go over there, and talk to that agent,” said he, pointing to the line of 10 people at gate 27.

Fortunately, Mr. Syracuse was not shy, looked at the man at the front of the line, and said “We’re supposed to be on that plane that’s leaving, and we need to talk to the agent…we’re not just trying to cut in line.”

People again were nice, and let us in, but that agent put the final nail in the coffin. He looked at our boarding passes, and reprimanded us. “You can’t get on that plane. You didn’t register until 9:45, and YOU (pointing at me) didn’t register until 9:48. You can’t get on the plane that late.”

So he sent us all the way back to the beginning, to wait again for an agent at the check-in line. He wasn’t any nicer – when we explained we’d missed our flights, he said, with more that a hint of condescension, “We’re you here 2 hours ahead.” After some additional conversation, he said the best I could do would be to fly standby the next day. So Mr. Two Hours Early told me to come in at 0630 for the 0800 flight.

When I got home, I got-on line (my new home wireless – love it) and found a flight that left SFO at 0600 and got me to Cleveland at 1617. I called USAir to see if I could fly stand-by for that one. The women on the phone said, “Sir, for a $100 penalty and the price difference, we could put you on a new flight.”

To which I said, “No thanks, I just need to know if it would work to fly stand-by on that flight.”

To which the broken record on the phone replied, “Sir, for a $100 penalty and the price difference, we could put you on a new flight.” This went on for about 5 minutes before she admitted I could fly stand-by for that itinerary. At no additional cost.

So I slept 3 ½ hours, got up, and went back to the airport. During my third visit to ticketing in 6 hours, I met perhaps the only helpful person at USAir. He couldn’t find the Cleveland itinerary, but checked me through with boarding passes (no stand-by) to Erie, through Philly, leaving at 1100 and arriving and 2155. Other than the extremely slow passage of time (waiting from 0500 to 1030 in SFO is not exciting), all went well until 1110, when, as we pulled away from the jetway, we were told that we couldn’t leave until 1140.

Once we were in the air, it wasn’t a bad flight. Decent leg room for coach, and a movie I had wanted to see. My speaker jack didn’t work well, but I was able to wiggle it into submission for most of the flight. In the end, we touched down in Philly and hour late, which was about 10 minutes before my flight was to start boarding. Then we had to wait 5 minutes for someone to come with the flags/lights to wave us into the gate (they actually told us this). So I bolted off the plane, ran on the moving sidewalk for B to C16, where I had to grab the shuttle bus to the F gates, from whence depart the commuters and international flights. Fortunately, there was a flight to Europe waiting for people, so our ride was fast, if bumpy.

More running, but I got to the monitors and saw that my flight was On-Time and hadn’t started boarding. I was walking up to the gate when I heard, “Flight yada yada to Erie, PA has been delayed and will be leaving is gate at 2205”. Shit. The Philly airport is not a fun place to burn time. There was one bar with no seats, no decent bookstores, and no free wireless internet.

At this point, my father let me know that my luggage had, in fact, arrived in Erie without me. With regard to my clothes, this was a load off my mind. With regard to airline safety, I’m a bit scared. My understanding was that your luggage could not longer board a plane without you -- I think I just uncovered a way to put an illicit device in an airplane.

We didn’t actually get on the plane until after 2230 (again, there was a hold-up freeing someone to wave in the arriving flight). We finally made it onto the runway by about 2300, at which time we were told that (1) Due to thunderstorms in the area, we would be waiting 45 minutes on the runway and (2) Due to budget cutbacks, there were not longer blankets or pillows provided for commuter flights.

Fortunately, they said we could use our electronic devices, so here I am blogging (OK, so I’m really venting) and sipping red wine. I have been flying mostly Delta for about 9 years now, since I lived most of them in Atlanta, and nothing like this has ever happened. Sure, flights have been late, but they always tried to help, and never tried to make it all your fault. Next time, I will be paying the extra $ to avoid USScare.


www.russianmeetingplace.com

They seem to have gotten two final insults in under the wire. First, the pilot just said we’re leaving after only 30 minutes, and we need to turn off our phones, so I can’t call my Dad and tell him when to pick me up, And, finally, after all this, they made me PAY for the f’in wine. After over 24 hours at airports, I’ll be happy if I end up in Erie this morning.