On March 27, two years long overdue, I decided to take a two and a half week long vacation to Portugal. I have always abided by the policy of using the national airline of any country I fly to, British Airways to London, Japan Air Lines to Tokyo, Air France to Paris, and so on. My last Air France trip left something to be desired (what I only paid for a reservation, not a seat, so you can bump me?), so I thought, why not try a domestic airline. United flies to China, American to Europe, the Carribean, and South America, how bad could it be.

When I picked my dates, and confirmed the availability of First and Business class seats, I hesitated two or three days. A domestic airline, I thought - will I ever get off the ground. I thought thirty-six years of life had taught me to trust that gut instinct, but I studiosly ignored it and agreed to pay $6,968.48 (yes, that’s $7000 folks) for two tickets to Lisbon, Portugal.

Not to self: ALWAYS follow your gut feeling.

The start was not auspicious. My DH, Vortigern, was in the shower when the phone rang at 6:58 AM on May 23rd, an automated voice announcing that my flight was cancelled, but the ‘voice’ promised they were making other arrangements. Worrying more about the finicky weather in Lisbon than my flights, I hastily jotted down the number and called back. Oh, I was told, I know we gave you that customer service number, but it’s only for domestic travel - you really have to call this other number. Shower delayed, I called the second number.

I was on hold forever, before finally reaching someone. “No,” she says, “we have no other flights for you. Do you want to leave in one or two days?”

I didn’t scream. That’s what age does. “No,” I informed her. “I am going to Europe today. The only issue is how you are going to get me there.” The dangers of using a cordless phone in the shower, aside, the agent was able to book two business class tickets on Lufthansa leaving three hours later than my flight. “But,” she insisted. “I should leave for the airport RIGHT AWAY to CONFIRM the already confirmed seats.”

Promptly at 8 or so, I got to the airport. (There was surprisingly little traffic on the 405 - the only good karma of my travels), only to get to the USAirways desk and find out I didn’t have a seat. So, my seat was reconfirmed, again (redundant, but what happened) and I amused myself in the airport lounge for two hours while I waited for the Lufthansa gate to open. (That’s a really funny story, but not for this bitch session).

I get to the Lufthansa counter the very minute it opens. What? I don’t have a seat? Imagine that. I stood there until I had a seat. Then I waited another two hours for my flight. Needless to say my IPod and other in flight amusements were quickly losing battery power.

I had a wonderful exprience on Lufthansa, although I ended up doing what I wanted to avoid, flying to Frankfurt, past my destination, they flying back to my destination. All told an eight hour delay on the front end of the trip, twenty one hours of travel, and I missed the weekly market in the Alfama.

After weeks of travel, I had pushed my flight plans to the back of my mind, but I woke up anxious the morning of my return flight. Thank goodnes I can not see into the future, otherwise I would never have gotten out of bed the morning of June 10th. The good news: there was an actual plane, and I was going to take an actual USAirways flight.

I should have been suspicious when the screen kept flashing Lisboa/Oporto - Philadelphia. I kept asking myself, why Porto. It was a direct, over ocean flight to Philadelphia. Boy was I ever wrong.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 10:35. Once we’re seated on the plane, the flight crew informs us that they have no jet fuel in Lisbon, and will have to fly to Porto to get fuel, but we will surely all make our connecting flights. So we sat on the tarmac for an hour before take off for no specific reason. But I had had that one mimosa, so I was feeling no pain. Then we make the one hour flight to Porto, where refueling takes an hour while we sat there, then we sat on the tarmac for more time - no explanation forthcoming. At which point I asked for water or food or something, because that mimosa had worn off. There was a lot of bitching at DH, but we got a 100 calorie bag of Sun Chips and some nuts. I hate junk food, but scarfed down those chips like you wouldn’t believe.

At 2:00 PM or so, we finally get in the air for the seven hour flight to Philadelphia. I won’t discuss the other crappy aspects of the flight because fouled toilets and video screens only dispensed upon request were the least of this flight’s issues. We land in Philadelphia, but lo and behold there’s no gate available and again we’re left sitting on the tarmac in one hundred degree heat and humidity. The flight crew had ordered a people mover to get us off the plane, but it didn’t come. I knew things were really bad when the pilot put his bags down for the fourth or fifth time and was yelling into his cell phone to get a bus over here so we could all get off the damn plane.

It was clear that we were going to miss, by a mile, our connecting flight because of passport control, baggage pick up, and customs. I walked/ran NYC style to the USAirways counter to get there first (a very good move, BTW, maybe) to get on the first flight to Los Angeles. The ticket agents announce that they’ve made provisions for all of us, except, of course, they hadn’t.

Can they get us those first class seats we paid dearly for, I asked. No, unless we want to travel in one or two days (what’s up with this question over and over again? We’re flying because we’d like to get there today - horse drawn buggies are for people with more leisure time).

And here (what you’re still reading?) is where the true nightmare begins. I agreed to fly standby in coach on a direct flight to LAX that’ll land at 9:30 PM or so. I’ll skip world’s nastiest gate agent, and get to the nitty gritty. After the plane if boarded, I’m told to find any available seat in coach, which I do. Then we sit on the tarmac, and sit, and sit.

The excuse this time. A fully fueled plane (well, at least we have fuel) can’t fly efficiently with the headwinds, so they’re going to take some fuel off the plane, and we’re going to have to stop an refuel some where in the midwest to complete the trip to LA, but it shouldn’t add more than an hour to our landing time. (VERY WISHFUL THINKING). In the time it takes to take fuel off the aircraft we miss our take off window and we sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours waiting out a sudden storm. Needless to say there are some passenger incidents and the air marshalls have to remove someone from the plane.

There is no food and little water to be had, but after three hours (I think, I was kind of loopy by then) we take off. This was world’s slowest flight. I felt like I could have run alongside faster, Fred Flintstone style. We land in Kansas City, Kansas or Missouri, I don’t know - whichever has an airport - to refuel. A woman got sick everywhere and we had to pull up to a gate to get her off the flight. Finally, we’re airborn again and it took forever to get to Los Angeles. And mind you we had no food, no water, disgustingly foul bathrooms, and a short-tempered flight crew, which didn’t make that trip pleasant. I was never so happy to land at almost 3:00 AM, only nine hours after I was supposed to arrive.

Final score, flights booked, four, flights taken one.

A short, violently turbulent flight would have been preferable to this USAirways hell. Needless to say no more than three employees told me I was insane to fly the airline and that they were only there for the pension. The customer relations person I’m working with to get my refund asked why I didn’t fly British Airways.

I told her in the future, I will.


Bookmark and Share