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adventures in United
Jan. 7th, 2008 02:45 amSo I had the experience of flying back to Japan today. Through Nagoya, even, which is unusual for me -- usually I fly through Kansai, because I like the Thunderbird, and I have a friend in Osaka. Not this time, however, for extremely amusing reasons which I shall relate.
So, as you may or may not have known, San Francisco was apparently experiencing some insane weather this weekend. Wind gusts of up to 65 miles an hour; as one weathercaster put it, "You can expect 6-8 inches of rain... PER HOUR." My connection had me going from Seattle to San Francisco on Thursday and from there to Osaka by Friday night, to give me a few days of recovering before work Monday morning.
I arrive at Seattle at 6 AM on Thursday, to find thirty billion people waiting to check in to United. An hour has gone by before I even get up to the front of the line; by this time, the machine announces that I'm too late to check bags for my flight, despite there being over half an hour left till it leaves. Huh? Okay... I call on a serviceperson, who shows up ten minutes later, harassed, and announces I'm not going to make my flight. She puts me on for the next flight, which will get me to SFO at 11:52... 13 minutes before my 12:05 flight is supposed to take off.
"The connection will be a bit of a struggle," she tells me. No kidding? But she assures me that SFO is having weather problems, and that my Osaka flight will probably be delayed.
This doesn't take into account, of course, that my flight from Seattle was also delayed. I get there at 12:30. The Osaka flight was indeed delayed from its 12:05 time... to 12:20 minutes. It's already gone when I get there. The nice agent at the counter (whom I finally get to talk to at 2 PM after standing in the line for 90 minutes) sorrowfully says that he would book me on the Narita flight, but it left at 1:30, while I was waiting in line. And there's only one flight to each airport per day.
So he rebooks me for the next day's, Friday's flight to Osaka, and gives me a coupon (though not a voucher, since it was weather related delays and thus an act of god) for a nearby hotel. He apparently feels sorry for me, because he bumps me up to business class, which cheers me up somewhat. I go to the hotel and wait.
-----------
Next day I wake up to discover the weather in San Fran has actually gotten worse. The power in my hotel is out, and the airport is actually closed. Ever the optimist, I pack my bags, check out of my hotel, and go down to the airport anyway to wait. It's open, but there's no mention of my flight anywhere on the boards. I find a random gate and wait some more.
Eventually the announcement comes up, after much hemming and hawing -- the flight is confirmed, and it will be leaving at 2 PM, only 2 hours delayed. I am delighted! I wait some more.
At 3 PM, we start boarding. By 3:30 we're finished boarding, but still sitting at the gate. At 4 PM, they announce that there's some kind of fuckup with the bags, so we sit at the gate some more. At 5 PM, we taxi out to the runway... oh joy! Only to discover that some non-vital system has failed, so they'll need to get back to the gate to have it disabled... except that there are no gates open.
We taxi around some more, and finally pull into a gate, to sit and wait for the maintenance crew. It's now 6 PM, and the pilot pages us to let us know that, regretfully, he is no longer legal to fly. Starting a 12 hour flight now will put him over his legal hours for the day. He asks around to see if there's some other pilot that can take the plane. There is none. So the flight is cancelled, and we all get off.
After standing in line for another 80 minutes, at an average of 20 minutes per customer server -- I was fourth in line -- I get up to the desk to be rebooked. There are now 200 people waiting on standby for Saturday's flight, and Sunday's, and Monday's, all of which were already overbooked. The best they can hope for is a flight to Osaka on Tuesday.
At this point I mention that I don't really insist on Osaka, I can go to Narita or Nagoya; no matter where I land it'll be about a 5 hour commute by train to where I have to go, anyway. And on the map, at least, Nagoya is actually closer to Toyama. This turns out to be the magic words, because they are able to book me for Saturday's flight to Nagoya.
-----------
Saturday morning I arrive at SFO bright and early, at 7:30 for a 11 AM flight, determined not to let this one get away from me. Much to my surprise, there's already a line at the counter... which doesn't even open until 8:30 AM.
More waiting. At 8:30 AM there are a couple hundred people waiting... and out comes a single guy, to open a single desk, where he proceeds to take -- I kid you not -- half an hour to deal with the first customer in line.
At 10 AM a guy comes out and asks everyone from the Nagoya flight to come forward. I start to move, and he tells me to stay where I am because I'm only 5th in line. I say, WTF, I've been 5th in line for twenty minutes now. At this average of 20 minutes per customer, the flight will have taken off before I'm checked in. He relents and I FINALLY get checked in for the Nagoya flight.
The flight is boarded and baggaged exactly on schedule... and we proceed to sit on the runway for two hours due to weather conditions, by which time I am hysterically convinced that the pilot is going to keel over dead in his seat, that the flight will be cancelled, that I am going to be stuck in SFO airport forever and get fired from my job. And then we took off.
All would be well, except that landing at 5 PM in Nagoya, I'm cutting perilously close to the time where all the trains to Toyama will have left and I'll have to stay overnight in Nagoya. This complicated by the fact that defying all logic and expectation, Nagoya airport is not connected to the JR system.
Fortunately I was able to make it to the JR station in time to catch the last train of the night. I got to Toyama station too late to take the local train to my house, but by that time I said fuck it, and spent the last of my money on a taxi. Arrived at my house precisely 75 hours after leaving Seattle. And here I sit. It is now 2:30 AM on Monday morning.
So, as you may or may not have known, San Francisco was apparently experiencing some insane weather this weekend. Wind gusts of up to 65 miles an hour; as one weathercaster put it, "You can expect 6-8 inches of rain... PER HOUR." My connection had me going from Seattle to San Francisco on Thursday and from there to Osaka by Friday night, to give me a few days of recovering before work Monday morning.
I arrive at Seattle at 6 AM on Thursday, to find thirty billion people waiting to check in to United. An hour has gone by before I even get up to the front of the line; by this time, the machine announces that I'm too late to check bags for my flight, despite there being over half an hour left till it leaves. Huh? Okay... I call on a serviceperson, who shows up ten minutes later, harassed, and announces I'm not going to make my flight. She puts me on for the next flight, which will get me to SFO at 11:52... 13 minutes before my 12:05 flight is supposed to take off.
"The connection will be a bit of a struggle," she tells me. No kidding? But she assures me that SFO is having weather problems, and that my Osaka flight will probably be delayed.
This doesn't take into account, of course, that my flight from Seattle was also delayed. I get there at 12:30. The Osaka flight was indeed delayed from its 12:05 time... to 12:20 minutes. It's already gone when I get there. The nice agent at the counter (whom I finally get to talk to at 2 PM after standing in the line for 90 minutes) sorrowfully says that he would book me on the Narita flight, but it left at 1:30, while I was waiting in line. And there's only one flight to each airport per day.
So he rebooks me for the next day's, Friday's flight to Osaka, and gives me a coupon (though not a voucher, since it was weather related delays and thus an act of god) for a nearby hotel. He apparently feels sorry for me, because he bumps me up to business class, which cheers me up somewhat. I go to the hotel and wait.
-----------
Next day I wake up to discover the weather in San Fran has actually gotten worse. The power in my hotel is out, and the airport is actually closed. Ever the optimist, I pack my bags, check out of my hotel, and go down to the airport anyway to wait. It's open, but there's no mention of my flight anywhere on the boards. I find a random gate and wait some more.
Eventually the announcement comes up, after much hemming and hawing -- the flight is confirmed, and it will be leaving at 2 PM, only 2 hours delayed. I am delighted! I wait some more.
At 3 PM, we start boarding. By 3:30 we're finished boarding, but still sitting at the gate. At 4 PM, they announce that there's some kind of fuckup with the bags, so we sit at the gate some more. At 5 PM, we taxi out to the runway... oh joy! Only to discover that some non-vital system has failed, so they'll need to get back to the gate to have it disabled... except that there are no gates open.
We taxi around some more, and finally pull into a gate, to sit and wait for the maintenance crew. It's now 6 PM, and the pilot pages us to let us know that, regretfully, he is no longer legal to fly. Starting a 12 hour flight now will put him over his legal hours for the day. He asks around to see if there's some other pilot that can take the plane. There is none. So the flight is cancelled, and we all get off.
After standing in line for another 80 minutes, at an average of 20 minutes per customer server -- I was fourth in line -- I get up to the desk to be rebooked. There are now 200 people waiting on standby for Saturday's flight, and Sunday's, and Monday's, all of which were already overbooked. The best they can hope for is a flight to Osaka on Tuesday.
At this point I mention that I don't really insist on Osaka, I can go to Narita or Nagoya; no matter where I land it'll be about a 5 hour commute by train to where I have to go, anyway. And on the map, at least, Nagoya is actually closer to Toyama. This turns out to be the magic words, because they are able to book me for Saturday's flight to Nagoya.
-----------
Saturday morning I arrive at SFO bright and early, at 7:30 for a 11 AM flight, determined not to let this one get away from me. Much to my surprise, there's already a line at the counter... which doesn't even open until 8:30 AM.
More waiting. At 8:30 AM there are a couple hundred people waiting... and out comes a single guy, to open a single desk, where he proceeds to take -- I kid you not -- half an hour to deal with the first customer in line.
At 10 AM a guy comes out and asks everyone from the Nagoya flight to come forward. I start to move, and he tells me to stay where I am because I'm only 5th in line. I say, WTF, I've been 5th in line for twenty minutes now. At this average of 20 minutes per customer, the flight will have taken off before I'm checked in. He relents and I FINALLY get checked in for the Nagoya flight.
The flight is boarded and baggaged exactly on schedule... and we proceed to sit on the runway for two hours due to weather conditions, by which time I am hysterically convinced that the pilot is going to keel over dead in his seat, that the flight will be cancelled, that I am going to be stuck in SFO airport forever and get fired from my job. And then we took off.
All would be well, except that landing at 5 PM in Nagoya, I'm cutting perilously close to the time where all the trains to Toyama will have left and I'll have to stay overnight in Nagoya. This complicated by the fact that defying all logic and expectation, Nagoya airport is not connected to the JR system.
Fortunately I was able to make it to the JR station in time to catch the last train of the night. I got to Toyama station too late to take the local train to my house, but by that time I said fuck it, and spent the last of my money on a taxi. Arrived at my house precisely 75 hours after leaving Seattle. And here I sit. It is now 2:30 AM on Monday morning.
