Journeys and rewards
Hello, friends. Spent a good part of last week on the road for my new job.
I'm way out of practice as a regular air traveler, but most of the older habits tend to fall right back into place when you resume a formerly common activity. For instance, I always managed to get to whatever airport I was departing well over an hour before my flight. Why? Well, for one thing, you just never know how long it will take to get through TSA security screening. Now that people are being asked to separate their tablets as well as laptop computers and liquids from the rest of their carry-on baggage, there's a lot of stopping and starting in the security lines.
Anyway, this trip had me traveling to a location in south Florida, but for reasons I still don't quite understand, my itinerary went from Lexington to Atlanta to Key West, Florida and then to Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood. First two legs were no problem, both flights departed and arrived on time. The second plane landed in Key West a few minutes early at that. But at that small, SMALL airport, passengers deplane onto the tarmac and then walk through a cordoned path.....straight into baggage claim!
That sounds nice if that's your final destination, but in my case, I still was to board one more flight. So I had to exit the terminal, make my way through the parking garage (which, incidentally, was larger than the terminal), up an elevator and then into security for ANOTHER screening! All of this with about forty minutes between flights, too!
I reached the gate (remember, small airport, there are only seven in the entire place) and saw on the board that they were boarding my flight, so I got into line. Once I reached the front of the line a very put-upon gate agent informed me that they were not boarding THAT flight and that I needed to sit down and wait!
Well, then!
So I did, after a quick visit to the restroom to towel off. Forty-five minutes later we boarded, after the gate agent apologized for being so short with me, and said that their entire flight schedule the previous day was cancelled due to a tropical storm. Understandable.
We arrived at my final destination airport, but, wouldn't you know it, there was a LIGHTNING warning, and the plane could not park and allow passengers to deplane. We sat on a taxiway for what appeared to have been about an hour. THEN we parked and deplaned. By then it was raining again, but they proceeded anyway.
I won't go into detail about my first Uber ride, except to say that in the airport where I landed, Uber and Lyft riders are picked up where commercial vans and buses pick up their passengers. Took my driver forty minutes to travel six miles as a result and longer for us to locate each other.
On my flights home there were a couple of other but different incidents. Our plane was taxiing to take off from Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood when an announcement was made on the PA system inquiring about a doctor on board. We stopped and stayed in place for about twenty minutes, we were thanked for our patience and went on our way, with the pilot even making up the time lost.
Finally, on my flight from Atlanta to Lexington, I was seated next to a large man (bigger than me, and that's saying something). I said "good evening" and he just scowled. When all of the passengers were on board the flight attendant came and asked this man multiple times if his name was "Jones" before he finally answered "Yeah, so?"
The guy was in the wrong seat. He apparently decided to sit somewhere other than his assigned seat and hope they never caught it. He was instructed to go to his ticketed seat or risk ejection from the plane. He grudgingly moved, but that was OK with me, as it gave me more space.
Oh, and when that flight landed, the pilot said that the ground crew was confused about which flight we were and stopped us before directing us to the wrong gate.
Once on the ground nothing else happened.
I'm due to travel to another destination in a couple of weeks, so I've elected to drive. Hope that turns out to be a good decision.
I'm way out of practice as a regular air traveler, but most of the older habits tend to fall right back into place when you resume a formerly common activity. For instance, I always managed to get to whatever airport I was departing well over an hour before my flight. Why? Well, for one thing, you just never know how long it will take to get through TSA security screening. Now that people are being asked to separate their tablets as well as laptop computers and liquids from the rest of their carry-on baggage, there's a lot of stopping and starting in the security lines.
Anyway, this trip had me traveling to a location in south Florida, but for reasons I still don't quite understand, my itinerary went from Lexington to Atlanta to Key West, Florida and then to Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood. First two legs were no problem, both flights departed and arrived on time. The second plane landed in Key West a few minutes early at that. But at that small, SMALL airport, passengers deplane onto the tarmac and then walk through a cordoned path.....straight into baggage claim!
That sounds nice if that's your final destination, but in my case, I still was to board one more flight. So I had to exit the terminal, make my way through the parking garage (which, incidentally, was larger than the terminal), up an elevator and then into security for ANOTHER screening! All of this with about forty minutes between flights, too!
I reached the gate (remember, small airport, there are only seven in the entire place) and saw on the board that they were boarding my flight, so I got into line. Once I reached the front of the line a very put-upon gate agent informed me that they were not boarding THAT flight and that I needed to sit down and wait!
Well, then!
So I did, after a quick visit to the restroom to towel off. Forty-five minutes later we boarded, after the gate agent apologized for being so short with me, and said that their entire flight schedule the previous day was cancelled due to a tropical storm. Understandable.
We arrived at my final destination airport, but, wouldn't you know it, there was a LIGHTNING warning, and the plane could not park and allow passengers to deplane. We sat on a taxiway for what appeared to have been about an hour. THEN we parked and deplaned. By then it was raining again, but they proceeded anyway.
I won't go into detail about my first Uber ride, except to say that in the airport where I landed, Uber and Lyft riders are picked up where commercial vans and buses pick up their passengers. Took my driver forty minutes to travel six miles as a result and longer for us to locate each other.
On my flights home there were a couple of other but different incidents. Our plane was taxiing to take off from Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood when an announcement was made on the PA system inquiring about a doctor on board. We stopped and stayed in place for about twenty minutes, we were thanked for our patience and went on our way, with the pilot even making up the time lost.
Finally, on my flight from Atlanta to Lexington, I was seated next to a large man (bigger than me, and that's saying something). I said "good evening" and he just scowled. When all of the passengers were on board the flight attendant came and asked this man multiple times if his name was "Jones" before he finally answered "Yeah, so?"
The guy was in the wrong seat. He apparently decided to sit somewhere other than his assigned seat and hope they never caught it. He was instructed to go to his ticketed seat or risk ejection from the plane. He grudgingly moved, but that was OK with me, as it gave me more space.
Oh, and when that flight landed, the pilot said that the ground crew was confused about which flight we were and stopped us before directing us to the wrong gate.
Once on the ground nothing else happened.
I'm due to travel to another destination in a couple of weeks, so I've elected to drive. Hope that turns out to be a good decision.
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