United we stand, delayed.
July 20th, 2006 @ 0:39 by NormMonkey
From the airport-woes department:
McCarran airport, in Vegas, doesn’t allow its carriers to have their own lounges. This is one of many things I have learned today. Another? According to Tom the United supervisor, a $100 travel voucher is the best he can do for a completely messed up day of travel.
Cause? “Flow control”, which is ticket-agent-speak for when Air Traffic Control messes up the schedule. I’m not sure how putting a flight the standby pattern can result in a two hour delay. Surely the plane wasn’t in the pattern for two hours. But that’s why I’m a computer techie and not an Air Traffic Controller.
A computer techie I am, and today I am also a red-eye traveler. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Like a good traveler, I showed up over two hours before my flight time. Seeing the horrendous lineup for the United counter, I made my way to the express check-in touchscreen. Swiped my travel card. “Are you traveling to Ottawa, Canada today?” Touch yes. “Sorry, we cannot process your flight from this terminal.” I ask the helpful agent supervising the touchscreen area wassup. I show her my itinerary. “Ah, that’s why. This flight’s late; it leaves at 13h30 now.” Holy crap!? My 10h55 flight is delayed by two and a half hours?
A brief moment of elation at the realization that this cuts down on my wait in Chicago leads to a much longer moment of despair at the realization that my wait in Chicago is less than two and a half hours. I won’t be able to make my connection. The helpful agent tells me to bring this to the attention of the counter agents.
The counter agents are at the other end of a lineup. A long lineup. The two people in front of me have enough luggage for a group of five. It occurs to me that this is true of quite a few of the travelers in the queue. The significance of this fact is not apparent to me until twenty minutes later when three-quarters of the counter agents are tied up with travelers who are packing and re-packing their bags in what I’m certain is a futile effort to get their stuff under the weight limit. A turtle would look at this line and laugh.
It is after ten by the time I get face to face with an agent. She gets me on a Delta airlines flight going through Atlanta to Ottawa. OK, fine, but that flight leaves at 11h00. I bust tail over to the Delta lineup and politely move my way up the line, briefly explaining my predicament to the kind folk who let me forward. I get to the counter agent, who groans and tsks at what has happened. “You’d better move your tail to the gate real quick.” “Oh, your final destination is Canada? I’ll need your passport, please.” For the time it takes to punch in the passport details, she can no longer check me in. The system won’t allow it (which is good, because given the lineups I’ve seen there’s no way I’m getting through security in time for any flight before noon).
The Delta agent spends ten minutes searching through all the flights, trying to get me to Ottawa today. She can’t do it. She tries all kinds of permutations and combinations, but the best she can do is the same flight tomorrow. OK, I take that and head back to United. I ask to speak to the supervisor of customer service, who turns out to be Susie. Susie does the same thing, trying all kinds of possibilities. The best she can come up with is a red-eye that gets in to town tomorrow. I explain that I can take the flight already arranged for tomorrow, but I’ll need them to cover a night’s accomodation. Apparently they don’t do that.
So I take the red-eye. I still have colleagues who are in town. I was supposed to fly back early today ’cause most of the office is away on business and the headquarters is short-staffed. With the late night flight, I’ll at least be able to sleep all night on the plane and be in the office for half a day tomorrow. I head back into Vegas to join my colleagues for a third day of manning the booth. More on that in a later post covering the Vegas trip proper.
I get back to the airport later this evening. I go over and have a chat with Tom the United supervisor. I was hoping for a pass to the United Lounge. This is where I learned about McCarran’s policy regarding carrier lounges. In the end, Tom sets me up with a $100 travel voucher, which is the highest he’s authorized to give me. According to Tom.
For now, it’s not all that bad. I’m in a bar with a Sam Adams and some salsa, guac and chips, answering emails and blogging on the WiFi. Tonight’s rest will be had at thirty-thousand feet, in my emergency-exit row window seat. With a pillow ‘tween me and the bulkhead.
More to come about the Vegas trip itself, in a post which may or may not show up later tonight.
