fm_emt
Useless without caffeine
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Here's the clean version of my New Years adventure with 3 different airlines and states I never wanted to visit:
I spent New Years Eve roaming around the country. We didn't see any fireworks, and midnight hit while we were in baggage claim.
So, Sarah & I were supposed to fly out of Baltimore, MD to meet up with a connection in Detroit, MI. Then we'd continue on to San Francisco.
"Neener!" said the God of Aircraft Maintenance. The DC-9 that was supposed to pick us up in Baltimore (BWI) was broken down somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin. Northwest was ferrying in another aircraft to take over for our flight, and it would only be an hour late. Not a problem because we had a 90 minute layover.
Right.
About 10 minutes before the emergency backup aircraft from Bob's Rent-A-Wreck in Detroit was supposed to arrive, we find out that it hadn't even left Detroit yet. Bob probably needed to run over to a MOPAR warehouse to replace the seeping rear main seal or something. In any case, we were royally screwed.
The Northwest Airlines people were actually really friendly and helpful. The gate supervisor quickly printed up tickets for us on another airline. So Sarah & I wound up with 2 first class tickets on a United Airlines flight going from Baltimore, MD to Los Angeles, CA with a connecting flight to San Francisco.
Or so we thought. We get to the United gates to find that the BWI - LAX flight is delayed by an hour due to some air traffic control mess in Chicago, and the United gate employee basically tells us "Sorry, this flight is oversold anyway, and we won't honor these tickets. Like, go away or something."
So we go back over to Northwest, who calls United and chews them out to no avail. American Airlines is also taking some of the Northwest refugees but there aren't any seats anywhere we needed to go. If we were going to Dallas/Fort Worth, we might have been ok.
Northwest eventually came up with another idea - Delta Air Lines. They quickly got into the system, paid for our new tickets, printed up everything, and got us seats. The catch: use the self-service kiosk and tell them you're checking 0 bags, and don't talk to any Delta employees.
So we headed over to Delta's check in counted naturally, our boarding passes get printed with "SSSS" on them. I can only assume that it means "Super Secret Strip Search." It's when the TSA dorks just pat you down. Our flurry of last-minute changes from 3 different airlines probably looked really bizarre in a computer somewhere.
No big deal. The TSA thing took less than 2 minutes, and nobody got strip searched.
We got on our Delta flight early, which was nice. The aircraft (an MD-88) only had about 20 passengers on it. We flew to Atlanta, GA and sat around for a while.
My god, what a foul place it was. There were uncontrollable screaming children everywhere and it was raining, hot, and muggy as hell. The next flight was a packed full 767-300 heading for San Francisco. Sarah & I were able to get some seats in the middle so we could sit together. Delta's 767s have a 2-3-2 seating configuration, and the 3rd seat was occupied by a fat guy watching the DVD for "Ice Age II."
The flight had a movie, too. Lucky us, the movie screen hung RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. They actually come out with the screen and hang it from a mount attached to the overhead bins. The movie was "The Queen" - ugh. boring. Anyway, the movie screen & the tv shows they aired were annoying as hell. I don't give a crap about Cirque de Soleil opening up in Atlanta because damn it, I wanted to sleep.
We got back to San Francisco just before midnight.
Oh yeah, I have absolutely no idea where my luggage is. Northwest didn't show it in their system, but Delta did, which is an absolute miracle. Both airlines use the same courier service, and both of their baggage offices have reports to look out for the bags (which were tagged properly, fortunately) and they'll deliver them to us when they arrive.
Sarah & I got her car from the parking lot and skillfully avoided all of the drunk idiots that were piling onto Hwy 101 at 1am. We came home and crashed into bed HARD. heh. I need some $^%#@ coffee.
Interesting notes:
* The Baltimore/Washington Int'l Airport has a display case of stuff from Thurgood Marshall exhibit. He was born in Baltimore, MD.
* The observation platform at BWI is fantastic. Lots of aircraft parts and interesting information.
* Airlines have a neat way of getting into each others reservation systems, just like travel agents do. And our first class seats, had they actually been available and United cooperative, would have been just under $450. That's the price that Northwest was going to be paying United, anyway. First Class on a cross country flight would have been nice. Too bad United told us to go sod off.
* I hate flying.
I spent New Years Eve roaming around the country. We didn't see any fireworks, and midnight hit while we were in baggage claim.
So, Sarah & I were supposed to fly out of Baltimore, MD to meet up with a connection in Detroit, MI. Then we'd continue on to San Francisco.
"Neener!" said the God of Aircraft Maintenance. The DC-9 that was supposed to pick us up in Baltimore (BWI) was broken down somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin. Northwest was ferrying in another aircraft to take over for our flight, and it would only be an hour late. Not a problem because we had a 90 minute layover.
Right.
About 10 minutes before the emergency backup aircraft from Bob's Rent-A-Wreck in Detroit was supposed to arrive, we find out that it hadn't even left Detroit yet. Bob probably needed to run over to a MOPAR warehouse to replace the seeping rear main seal or something. In any case, we were royally screwed.
The Northwest Airlines people were actually really friendly and helpful. The gate supervisor quickly printed up tickets for us on another airline. So Sarah & I wound up with 2 first class tickets on a United Airlines flight going from Baltimore, MD to Los Angeles, CA with a connecting flight to San Francisco.
Or so we thought. We get to the United gates to find that the BWI - LAX flight is delayed by an hour due to some air traffic control mess in Chicago, and the United gate employee basically tells us "Sorry, this flight is oversold anyway, and we won't honor these tickets. Like, go away or something."
So we go back over to Northwest, who calls United and chews them out to no avail. American Airlines is also taking some of the Northwest refugees but there aren't any seats anywhere we needed to go. If we were going to Dallas/Fort Worth, we might have been ok.
Northwest eventually came up with another idea - Delta Air Lines. They quickly got into the system, paid for our new tickets, printed up everything, and got us seats. The catch: use the self-service kiosk and tell them you're checking 0 bags, and don't talk to any Delta employees.
So we headed over to Delta's check in counted naturally, our boarding passes get printed with "SSSS" on them. I can only assume that it means "Super Secret Strip Search." It's when the TSA dorks just pat you down. Our flurry of last-minute changes from 3 different airlines probably looked really bizarre in a computer somewhere.
No big deal. The TSA thing took less than 2 minutes, and nobody got strip searched.
We got on our Delta flight early, which was nice. The aircraft (an MD-88) only had about 20 passengers on it. We flew to Atlanta, GA and sat around for a while.
My god, what a foul place it was. There were uncontrollable screaming children everywhere and it was raining, hot, and muggy as hell. The next flight was a packed full 767-300 heading for San Francisco. Sarah & I were able to get some seats in the middle so we could sit together. Delta's 767s have a 2-3-2 seating configuration, and the 3rd seat was occupied by a fat guy watching the DVD for "Ice Age II."
The flight had a movie, too. Lucky us, the movie screen hung RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. They actually come out with the screen and hang it from a mount attached to the overhead bins. The movie was "The Queen" - ugh. boring. Anyway, the movie screen & the tv shows they aired were annoying as hell. I don't give a crap about Cirque de Soleil opening up in Atlanta because damn it, I wanted to sleep.
We got back to San Francisco just before midnight.
Oh yeah, I have absolutely no idea where my luggage is. Northwest didn't show it in their system, but Delta did, which is an absolute miracle. Both airlines use the same courier service, and both of their baggage offices have reports to look out for the bags (which were tagged properly, fortunately) and they'll deliver them to us when they arrive.
Sarah & I got her car from the parking lot and skillfully avoided all of the drunk idiots that were piling onto Hwy 101 at 1am. We came home and crashed into bed HARD. heh. I need some $^%#@ coffee.
Interesting notes:
* The Baltimore/Washington Int'l Airport has a display case of stuff from Thurgood Marshall exhibit. He was born in Baltimore, MD.
* The observation platform at BWI is fantastic. Lots of aircraft parts and interesting information.
* Airlines have a neat way of getting into each others reservation systems, just like travel agents do. And our first class seats, had they actually been available and United cooperative, would have been just under $450. That's the price that Northwest was going to be paying United, anyway. First Class on a cross country flight would have been nice. Too bad United told us to go sod off.
* I hate flying.
