Ah. Just got an e-mail from the lovely Dave describing his 12.5 hour flight to Tokyo. Sadly, I may eclipse that in my quest to return to Boston from Portland. Mind if I rant? Thanks!
Got up at 4:15 AM to get to the airport by 6:30 (had to dodge rush hour, as I-205 tends to be completely insane and impassible at times) for an 8:30 AM flight. Upon getting in line at the American Airlines ticket counter, one of their gate agents told everyone in line headed through O'Hare (like me!) that there was a maintenance problem with the plane, the flight was going to be cancelled, and we should call a number (on a handy sheet of paper that she handed out) to rebook. So, being the well-trained little monkey that I am, I did, and got on an 11:30 AM flight. This would put me into Boston after the T stops running and force me to drop an extra $25 on cab fare, but whatever. As a happy little bonus surprise they bumped me up to first class for the first leg (now into Dallas/Ft. Worth).
Anyway, after waiting the extra three hours, another (equally charming) American Airlines gate agent informed us that there was a hydraulics problem on
that plane, so
it was delayed for three hours, seriously jeopardizing my chances of making my connection. Still, it was my best chance to make it back to Boston, so I stuck with it, after extracting a promise that if I was stuck in Texas overnight, they would be paying for the hotel room (this being entirely their fault and all). Some time in the early afternoon, when they finally got us all loaded (with me in my comfy first class seat), they found
another maintenance problem, and announced that it would take at least four hours to fix.
For those of you counting, that’s
three maintenance problems on two planes in a span of less than eight hours. If I weren’t completely exhausted, I would have been becoming a little wary of the quality of their aircraft at this point.
Anyway, they re-routed me
again, this time with an extremely creative and circuitous route; Alaska Airlines from PDX to San Francisco, followed by American Airlines to JFK, and then up to Boston on a shuttle, arriving at 10:30 the following morning. And they bumped me back down to coach, not because of availability or anything, but more because, hey, they felt like it! Charming AAagent #3 actually said to me “Hey, if I bump you to first class, I have to bump
everyone to first class”. He declined the opportunity to explain to me who “everyone” was, or to comment on why “everyone” who had been screwed by his airline thus far didn’t actually deserve to be upgraded to first class. Also, despite having three hours notice, he told me they wouldn't be able to reroute my checked bag, and that I would need to file a lost luggage claim when I get to Logan so they can deliver my bag when it turns up. They are, after all, understaffed today. He understood my frustration. Oh yes. He told me so. He also thanked me for my understanding, a gesture that never fails to infuriate me.
So, with American being understaffed and all, I had ventured outside of the security checkpoint to talk to the lovely and talented AAagent #3. Apparently when I went to go through security again, I looked a tad umm… disgruntled... which
may have been the reason I was singled out for “special screening”. Yep. Nothing took the edge off my bad mood like getting patted down and having all my carry-on rifled through. The only upside was watching one of the security guys diligently do a swipe of the bomb sniffer on every single one of the pockets of my new jacket, a jacket selected in part because I thought it was cool that it had so many pockets. He lost track a couple of times and had to re-umm… sniff. It probably took him ten minutes to convince himself that my jacket posed no threat to anyone.
I finally made it through security, and felt I could relax a little, since in the rebooking process I was at least promised that I had reserved seats for all three flights, but... when I got to the Alaskan Airlines gate to get my boarding pass, they informed me that I'd only been booked for standby, and it wasn’t looking promising that I’d make it onto the flight.
That was approximately the point when I had the nervous breakdown. Apparently if you yell at the gate agents (I learned this by watching other people, I didn’t do it myself), you get nowhere (literally - if you're impressive enough they may not let you fly at all), but if you get teary-eyed and slump over on the counter, they'll do pretty much anything to get rid of you. I’m not proud of myself, but I was exhausted, and starting to wonder if I wouldn’t be better off just driving back to New England. Fortunately, Alaskan Airlines customer service is not the same as American Airlines customer service, and someone bothered to be helpful. (If anyone from PDX ever reads this, Supervisor Mike from Alaskan Airlines deserves a big shiny gold star). He was kind enough to assign me a seat; in exchange, I was kind enough to stop freaking out his other passengers with my panic attack. I set off in a quest for food, hoping to improve my mood, and kill time until my 7 PM departure.
I wish the story ended there, but no! There's more! There was an air traffic control delay of the Alaskan flight from PDX to SFO, and they were iffy on making the connection for JFK-bound passengers. Alaskan wasn’t willing to take responsibility for me being stranded (it being American’s fault and all), so I called American, and told them I wasn’t getting on the plane unless they could promise me a hotel room in San Francisco if necessary. Fat chance! They rebooked me again, this time on an 11:50 PM flight through Dallas/Ft. Worth. I am currently sitting in terminal C of PDX (still), but will allegedly arrive in Boston at 11:15ish tomorrow morning. For whatever reason, I’m not holding my breath on that. American Airlines Supervisor #1 (because from now on, I’m not speaking to any of them who aren’t in charge, and whose full name, rank, and serial number I don’t write down) was kind enough to promise me a $150 travel voucher for my inconvenience. Yeah, ‘cos I’m going to be flying with them again really freakin’ soon.
Just to prove that I haven’t lost my sense of humor, I’ll share with you this: they eventually decided
not to cancel my original flight, and it left PDX, albeit three hours late. I may have missed any connecting flights, but if the woman hadn’t told me to rebook, I’d either be in Boston by now, or be happily asleep in an American Airlines-supplied Chicago hotel room. Freakin’ hilarious, no?
I’ll update you on my progress later, hopefully from Cambridge, and not from some scary port of call in the South or Midwest. Wish me luck.
