I’ve had a few bad trips in my time. No, not that kind. The point A to point B kind. I’ve traveled on Nicaraguan buses so top-heavy with luggage and passengers that nearly every turn on mountain roads made me reconsider having given up prayer. I’ve helped push more than one Guatemalan bus out of the mud. (They don’t discount your ticket for that, by the way.) In Tunisia, I’ve cringed in the back seat of a 90-mph Peugeot taxi that passed cars and trucks and donkey carts against oncoming vehicles so close you could read their license plates. I’ve ridden second-class trains in Mexico so grungy you’d rather die of sepsis than visit the toilet. I’ve helped bail out a leaky fishing boat on the way from Bali to Singapore.
So, really, the fact that I spent 39 hours in airports and airplanes to get home from Netroots Nation was really not that big a deal. My planes didn’t crash. The air conditioning always worked. The chairs were more or less comfortable. And I could always buy "food" for three times what it costs anywhere else. But after being energized for three days by meeting a couple of hundred wonderful progressives and hearing in detail what a couple dozen of them are doing to move our country in a better direction, it was a drag to get worn down by the stupidity of United Airlines.
Before I go on, let me say that I’m not picking on one carrier. On the way from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, U.S. Airways canceled the first leg of my flight. So I had to rebook and hang around in the Vegas airport for four and a half hours listening to the binging of slot machines that they would probably install on the jetways if they could get away with it.
But United really curdled my ire.
Last Sunday starts out OK. I bid goodbye to a few folks, including Deoliver47 and Zwoof, and arrive at the airport more than an hour and a half before my scheduled 10:38 departure. No problems. I don’t even get the special attention from airport security that I and the other three members of my family have had visited upon us since 2001 in far greater amounts than random inspection would provide. At the gate, I settle down with Mother Jones and the advance copy of a book on energy companies' influence over the climate debate and prepare for six hours of reading.
At 10:20 it is announced that although our plane has arrived, one of its tires has a bulge. The manufacturer says the bulge is not so great as to be a safety issue. The maintenance crew says otherwise, so they have to change it. Sixty minutes, tops.
OK. This means I will miss my connection in Chicago. But, hey, when it’s a question of possibly blowing a tire, sliding off the runway, exploding and having to be identified by dental records, I vote for shrugging off the inconvenience and erring on the side of caution. Some passengers stand in a queue to rebook their connections. I use the 800 number. Soon, I’ve got a new Chicago flight booked that will deliver me into Los Angeles five hours later than previously. More reading time. No big deal.
At 10:50 it is announced that they have not been able to find a spare tire in the airport. If they can’t find a spare from U.S. Airways, one will have to be flown from the United hub in Denver.
No spare tire at a major airport for one of the most common passenger planes in the U.S.? If an engine goes bad, I can understand. I’m later told that United doesn’t have enough space at the airport for spares. My car has a spare tire. It doesn’t take up that much space. Why not carry one in the cargo hold? OK. What do I know. There's probably some good technical reason not to, I suppose. But what would it cost for them to rent a few cubic feet in one of the self-storage units I saw riding in the taxi on the way from the city?
At 11:10, we get the news. No tire. It is slated to arrive at 3:30. I wonder if they will send two just in case one turns out to be a dud. Take-off is scheduled for 4 p.m. I call the 800 number again. While I listen to phone-Muzak awaiting an agent, I wonder if I shouldn’t try to get an earlier flight to Chicago and have my checked luggage delivered later. Some of my fellow passengers have already made that choice. I decide not to. All my clean undershorts are in there. So I rebook for the second-to-last flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. It won’t take off until 8 p.m. Surely, I’ll be there by then.
For the next several hours, the 100 of us awaiting the tire-change hear nothing from the crew behind the counter. Other flights take off from the gates next to ours, although three of them are also delayed, creating a queue that meanders back toward the bad pizza place. Several passengers on my flight manage to book themselves on early planes. We dwindle to 60 or so.
A Thai woman and her mother-in-law strive to maintain control of three very young children who are alternately screaming, crying, running down the concourse or needing to be changed. I am glad not to be her.
Slinkerwink arrives. We chat for a while. Her plane has also been delayed and she’s worried about her connection. Ultimately, she works it out.
Come 4, we have heard nothing. 4:30, still nothing. Announcements for other planes are made. I shout out, "What about flight 793?" There is perplexity on the face of the counter-woman who catches my eye as I do this. Then a flicker of recognition gives her eyebrows an oh,-yeah-that-flight look. "The tire has been changed. But we’re waiting for the flight crew ..."
Thank goodness.
"...which is flying in from Chicago."
Uh...
For the past five and a half hours, they’ve known that this flight would be needing a pilot and co-pilot once the tire is fixed. They knew pretty much when that would be. If they had no crew available in Pittsburgh, why not fly one in from Denver on the same plane that brought the spare? Or from Chicago? Or from Wherevertheheck Junction? I look at the time. Will they get here soon enough so I can get to Chicago to make that 8 o’clock departure?
The counter-woman continues: "Right now, there is a storm in Chicago and no planes are taking off. As soon as it clears, we’ll let you know."
So, they aren’t "flying in from Chicago." They are waiting to fly in from Chicago.
Some of us engage in loud grumbling at this and we are told to "be patient." A guy covered with homemade tattoos, and already unhappy, shouts: "Why should we? Do you know how long we’ve been here?" While we continue grumbling to each other, he stomps around in front of the counter until a 6’3" Allegheny County deputy appears to give him the chill-out glare.
The Thai woman, who has twice been in tears because her English isn’t good enough to understand exactly what’s going on based on the sporadic news from behind the counter, is worried that she can’t make her connection to fly to her home in Wisconsin. "What is happening?" she asks. I explain as best I can.
Arenosa shows up with her husband. They’re flying to the Northwest. I haven’t met either of them at the Netroots confab, but now I get to have a pleasant chat with her. She marvels at the time of our flight displayed by the boarding gate: It still reads 10:38 a.m. It is now after 5 o’clock.
I stand in line to rebook on the last flight out of Chicago for Los Angeles, 9:40 p.m. After 45 minutes, I reach the front and discover that I have been unbooked from flight 793 out of Pittsburgh. How did that happen? I ask, not really expecting an answer, and I get none but a shrug that says these-things-happen-sir.
No kidding.
I am offered alternate flights to Los Angeles via D.C. or Charlotte. I choose to stick with the devil I know.
More passengers go home, leave for a hotel, or manage to rebook, hoping that somehow their luggage on 793 will manage to find its way to them. We’re down to about 40 of us.
I get into a discussion with a Pittsburgh woman who is on her way to buy her first franchise. Her husband dropped her off this morning at 7:30. She has now been in the airport for 11 hours. She could have driven to Chicago in less than eight. She has to be at the meeting in her business suit no later than 8:30 Monday morning. The suit is in the cargo hold of flight 793. We discuss health care, the economy, corporate mismanagement, and the reluctance of the counter-crew to communicate with us.
The flight crew arrives. We aren’t told. Instead, some passengers standing at the window happen to see white-shirted guys doing a safety check in the cockpit. Several of us walk to the window, checking perhaps to make sure we're not being pranked. OK. It’s been a long wait, but in a few minutes we’ll be airborne. Then, somebody in a orangey-yellow safety vest pulls out an aluminum ladder, erects it beneath the plane’s belly, opens a door and sticks his head in. After five minutes, he calls over two more guys in vests. They all look ... perplexed. But after awhile, they close the door, remove the ladder and drive away.
We hold our breath. The franchise woman and I look around us. Thirty passengers left. Will they cancel?
Two minutes later, a new counter-woman who arrived at the shift change says: "Flight 793 is canceled. The flight crew have exceeded their allowable flying time."
Because it took 30 minutes to do a safety check that they expected would take 15, they are prohibited from piloting a 90-minute flight. We don’t even discuss this newest idiocy or why they didn’t think to send us a crew that could actually fly the plane after they got here. We just queue up. A handful of passengers manage to get switched into the last flight to Chicago.
But the franchise woman is not happy. One of the counter-women – there are now three, the most who have been there all day – has informed her that all the luggage will stay on the plane and go out tomorrow. "I can’t do that," she says. Because her business suit is in that luggage. She sees her franchise slipping away. She is screaming and crying at the same time and starting to pound the counter top.
The burly deputy walks up behind her and puts a firm hand on her shoulder. She has no idea who is doing this and naturally reacts to break away, whereupon he gets tougher. "Calm down, ma’am, or I’ll have to arrest you." Only then does she see that he is a deputy. This scene does not sit well with three of us standing in line behind her. We start gently arguing with the deputy. His partner appears. I’m pondering tomorrow’s headlines and how many of us will be in them. But the situation does calm down. And it turns out that they are already taking the luggage off 793. The franchise woman's will be transferred to the other Chicago flight. All of us brighten a little. Do we still have a chance?
She is, as it turns out, the last person squeezed into that flight.
Five counter-people are now on duty, including one gruff guy who behaves as if we’re the ones who screwed up. I get upgraded to first class for tomorrow’s flight, I get a voucher for the airport Hyatt, a dinner voucher, a breakfast voucher, and directions to Carousel J where my luggage, I am told, will be waiting for me. I bargain for a round-trip ticket to Beijing, to London, anywhere. They finally agree to Denver.
It’s 9:30. I have been camped in the airport for 12 and a half hours. Together with a dozen of my compatriot passengers, I go to Carousel J. Everybody's luggage is there... except mine. The clerk checks the computer. My stuff has been sent to Chicago. It will be sent on through to Los Angeles on the first Monday flight. Great. I am wearing my last clean pair of socks and shorts.
Next morning, I am scheduled for the very same flight, leaving at 10:38 a.m. It’s a four-minute walk from the hotel to the security area. I look at the departure schedule. My flight has been delayed until 11:30. I will miss my Chicago connection. Every other flight is full, so I am scheduled for a 4:40 p.m. flight out of Chicago. But there are no vacant seats in first class. Fine. No problem. I arrive in Chicago at noon local time. My 4:40 flight finally lifts off at 8:30. I arrive in Los Angeles at 10:15.
I go as instructed to the corral where all the already-arrived luggage is kept. Mine. Is. Not. There. "Are you sure?" asks the attendant. "It’s purple" I say, "you can’t miss it." After waiting in line another 30 minutes, a clerk tells me she’s located it ... in Charlotte. She asks, "Did you fly out of Charlotte, sir?"
No, I didn’t.
My luggage, I am told, will be sent to my house "sometime tomorrow," which is Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, a courier delivers it. All the zippers on the outside compartments are open. There is a five-inch rip down one side. But all my underwear is there.