Ordeal at IAD
***There will be a second entry about the rest of my trip coming shortly***
From the time I left my apartment to the time I walked my house in Palo Alto, nearly fourteen hours had gone by.
It started with my BlueVan ride to Dulles airport. The driver drove like there was a siren on top of us and complained about old people driving. Then it took him half an hour to find the third person we picked up. Granted this wasn't completely his fault, but I was getting worried. Little did I know, there was no need for worrying...
I arrive at the airport in plenty of time for my 7:15pm flight. I get my boarding pass and go through security with ease and walk to Concourse B where my gate is. The flight is now departing at 8:45 thanks to weather in Boston where the aircraft is coming from. Fabulous. I decide I need food. I'm not seeing much in Concourse B so I grab a Dining at Dulles guide that has a map of the concourses. According to the guide, there should be a Burger King right across from my gate, but there isn't. I ask someone who looks official, maybe a pilot and he tells me they closed some stuff down and are redoing things because there aren't enough food places in the concourse. No Kidding. Since I have so much damn time, I decide I want to explore Concourses C an D which are connected and have lots more to choose from. According to the map, it's just a short shuttle ride across the airplane road. I walk to the shuttle area and start to wait. Not so fast Jane. There's a sign saying the shuttles going from Concourse B to C are not running. This means I have to take the shuttle to Concourse A, and then another shuttle from there to C. If I had a picture of the map, you'd see this is extremely roundabout considering the net distance I needed to travel. After some Concourse C wandering I settle on McDonald's. I make my way back to my gate B22 only to discover that we have been moved to gate B24. Five minutes later we return to B22. At this point departure time is 9:30. We watch the 9:20 flight to SFO board and take-off. People with no checked luggage got to take that flight. That didn't include me. Not fair. Eventually the aircraft arrives, but then there are maintenance problems. Finally we board at 11:30. I spend the entire flight dead tired yet unable to sleep. In a nutshell, it was awful. We land at 2am Pacific time...in the international terminal. I'm in the third row so I made it to baggage claim fairly quickly and for some odd reason my suitcase is sitting on the belt which isn't moving. This makes me wonder if it was on the 9:20 flight. I notice it has an LAX tag on it, too. This makes me wonder if it went to LA first. I'm too tired to really care and I'm just happy my bag is there. Then I call my mom who unfortunately had just taken the split to the domestic terminal so she has to drive around and back onto the freeway to turn around. Eventually we do meet up, and all is well.
posted by Jane @ 9:10 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Did you fly Independence again? The whole ordeal sounds very similar to my trip home from NC with them, except the weather was fine. But remember how I said I was glad they were going out of business? I kinda hope they don't anymore--mainly cause they're wicked cheap and I don't have much money. I bet it'd do them some good to get a business class though. Not that I'd be able to afford it, but I'm sure some people would.
It probably doesn't matter much what airline you fly. At present, they all are equally miserable. In May, all the network evening newscasts ran features on how much of a hassle flying was going to be this summer. It's a combination of rising costs (especially fuel, naturally) and increasing competitive pressure (desperation really) for airlines that already are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy or close to it.
So, in an effort to make ends meet, the airlines are flying too many passengers crammed onto too many flights with too little ground support.
We got lucky leaving Pittsburgh on June 12. It only took us 45 minutes to get through check-in and security. The day before (because of passengers left over from the day before that due to flights cancelled by weather), it took up to SIX HOURS to get through check-in and security (according to the Pittsburgh paper on the morning that we left).
For trips of less than 300 miles, I recommend a bus or a train (book well in advance for trains, the ride is good and they are mostly close to on time, but they can get crowded).
Holy Shiite Muslim Jane, that really did sound like it sucked....I've had the extremely tired-but cant sleep on an airplane experience myself. Mine was largely due to this lady in front of me who stayed up the entire flight reading a book, so she had her goddam dome light on the entire time (I was ready to reach forward and strangle her ass). Under normal conditions I usually really enjoy flying and chilling out at airports, but a fiasco such as the one you went through could definitely give a person an aversion to flying.....this is cousin Aaron by the way
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