Airport Fun

There is little more awesome than watching a lightning storm from 10,000 feet. It’s even better when the turbulence is limited, because that means there are fewer people screaming.

Coming in to land at the airport in Newark, New Jersey a few weeks ago on a stormy Thursday evening elicited in me one of the best feelings I had ever had about being on a plane and getting off of one. My landing was the perfect mix of weather: I landed just late enough that it wasn’t actively raining, early enough to be able to watch the massive cracks of lightning streak the sky out of the window of a 737.

However, part of my excitement at landing was simply because I had made it after one of the worst airport experiences – possibly the worst – I’ve ever had. And all of that blame could be placed on the storm I excitedly watched out of my window.

Actually, that isn’t true. A significant portion of the blame could be placed on the incompetence of others. Which is always a gratifying thought. For example (spoiler alert), if Harry Potter ever took a moment to blame Sirius Black’s death on Sirius Black, for the simple fact that Sirius was dumb enough to take time out of an epic battle to taunt his opponent and then enjoy a raucous belly-rolling laugh at her expense, then Harry might have felt much better about himself in the ensuing year.

So while my lack of guilt in the matter on the Thursday evening in question did little to make me feel better about myself at the time, it is nice in retrospect to be able to blame several hours of general airport suckishness on the people who were supposed to know what they were doing.

The morning of my trip to Newark, I found out my flight had been cancelled; due to the imminent storms in that area, Continental had to cancel a bunch of flights. So my dad, who had made my original reservation, called the airport about the cancellation (it was listed as cancelled before an announcement went out) and the apologetic airport people got me on a Delta flight leaving only 40 minutes later than my original flight.  

All was well and I drove to Atlanta airport in my mom’s van, handed the keys off to her boyfriend, said goodbye to my little sister, and headed off past the big penguin, resigned to standing online since I couldn’t do advance check-in for this flight.

I personally don’t believe that anyway really enjoys lines. This is why I don’t like shopping at Walmart on Riverstone. (Editor's note: amen) There are some great things to be said for Walmart despite its negative press. But apparently we in Canton are Walmart People, and thus the lines are Walmart are always long. No matter what time of day. The lines don’t seem to be significantly shorter early on a Thursday morning than they do on Christmas Eve. And airport lines are sometimes just as bad as Walmart lines. The problem with airport lines is that they always seem to move slowly.

 Forty-five minutes later, having sent my first of many text messages to my dad (who would get them several hours later when he landed in Newark), I finally approached the counter. I had arrived at the airport probably 90 minutes before boarding time. With half of that time gone, I began to experience genuine problems.

 My second text message to my dad read “Flight is delayed. Says four fifty five” so that he would be able to figure out how far apart our planes were landing now (initially, we were landing about seven minutes apart, allowing me to meet up with my dad, step-mom, and two siblings, and the five of us to head off to family reunion weekend). My next message: “Claiming ticket is not paid for and will be almost a thousand dollars.”

No, you didn’t read that wrong. I got to the counter, got my boarding pass printed, and then the man helping me turned to the woman next to him and asked “What does this mean?”

She then proceeded to explain to both me and her coworker that I had a reservation, not a ticket, and that no payment had been written down. In fact, they couldn’t even guarantee me the price the ticket had been reserved at. They said the only way I would get on the plane was if I could pay $918.

 I was (I choose to believe understandably) more than a little bit freaked out. At this point I began explaining about the cancelled flight, that I had a ticket, originally made online which had been transferred, presumably by phone, this morning – by my dad, not me, and no I can’t contact him because he’s on a plane – and that it was simply unreasonable to suggest that my ticket had not been paid for because anyone who has ever bought a ticket online can tell you that right after you hit a button to select Flight X, you’re asked for a method of payment. Thus, I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I didn’t understand the difference between a ticket and a reservation and if she could explain it again?

At this point, the two Delta workers were trying to find my ticket and help the other people on the line and finally the woman turned to the man and said “We need a redcoat!”

That of course sounds really exciting but actually isn’t. Presumably, a redcoat was somebody higher up, which made me feel a little bit better because I was fairly convinced that the many trying to assist me was incompetent. My convictions were further when, after signaling for a redcoat, he turned back to me, slid me a business card sized coupon across the counter, and apologized for the inconvenience. The card offered me free one of three alcoholic beverages or a free set of headphones. Well… I’m 17. In fact, I’ve just made it fairly clear that I’m young by explaining that my dad had reserved and bought my ticket. And the last time I checked, airplane headphones are almost always free anyway.

But we can appreciate his attempt at customer service. Finally the remarkably unpleasant redcoat came over to help. She called the reservation desk. She told me that if anyone had my ticket it would be them, and since they didn’t, I would have to go talk to Continental.

I said no.  It was now 4 p.m. I knew enough to know that if I left that desk I was going to have to stand on an hour long line at Delta again. I wasn’t sure what the line looked like at Continental. She had also just rattled off a bunch of rule numbers (my ticket was a rule 240-something) and told me what to say and I was sure by the time I got to Continental I would have forgotten all of it.

So I asked her to come with me.

She said no.

And then I started to cry.

All of a sudden she was much more pleasant. Two or three tears and an obvious effort to “hold back the floodgates” will very often help your cause. If you’re not young and cute it’s probably less effective.

Then Delta walked with me to Continental and Continental says to Delta “Oh, we’ve had a couple of those today.” And then they each call about ten people and finally find my ticket because it got lost in the Continental system instead of being transferred to Delta and it is suddenly 4:25 p.m.. Well now they don’t know if they can get me a seat on the flight, which makes no sense to me since they had already assigned me one.

So they reassign me the same seat. And then Continental says “good luck making the flight” and washes her hands of me and Delta runs me back across the airport to the Delta counters and hands me off to a coworker and asks said coworker to run me through security because otherwise I will miss my flight.

We run to security, they check my id, and the new Delta woman starts having a conversation with TSA. I stand there, confused. Is she going to come with me further or am I on my own? Moments later she says “what are you waiting for, go get on line!”

 So I did.

 I get through security, slide back into my Birkenstocks, fling my backpack over my shoulder, grab my wheeling carry-on, thank God I hadn’t planned on checking bags (that’s right, I packed for a four week trip in a carry-on bag; I felt accomplished), slide my purse over my shoulder (with my belt in it because I wasn’t stopping to put that back on), and fit my laptop under my arm.

Then I ran down the escalators, squeaked through the doors onto a train that was almost full and about to leave, and only then did I put my laptop in my backpack and my watch on my wrist. We stopped at terminal A, then continued. Once more I let go of the rail, this time to reattach my belt. Finally I got off the train and discovered I was the second-to-last gate. I had three minutes to get on the plane.

It was my first experience being the person running down the hall and it really wasn’t that exciting. I panicked when the gate listed a flight to Cleveland until the attendants at the desk assured me that the gate would also serve for the plane to Newark – which was now not leaving until 6:15 p.m.

I could blame the storm for my "excitement" at Hartsfield-Jackson. I could blame Delta, or Continental. I could blame myself, for not reserving my own ticket. Instead, I just chose to be thrilled that I was going to get on the plane at all, and in a much better frame of mind went to get Ben&Jerrys. I think that was Harry Potter’s problem. He didn’t have good ice cream to help himself feel better about life.