Between Steve and I, we have horror stories of flying. You name it, it's happened. Neither of us can fly together or separately without some kind of mishap.
Many of these circumstance has to do largely with the stupidity of others. Excuse me for being blunt, but it's true.
When Steve left for boot camp, he flew out of Fargo, with a layover in Denver, and a final destination of San Diego. Upon arrival in Denver, he found his gate, except he missed a memo about the gate change. Now, you may be thinking, "How is that someone else's stupidity?" Well, stay tuned. When I said "missed the memo", what I REALLY mean is he verified that he was at the correct gate by verifying that the flight number on his ticket matched the flight number on the big screen at the gate. And it did. And it continued to match his flight number and destination until he tried to board when they FINALLY gave him the memo that his flight was at a different gate. And had already left. This meant that he had to go from Denver to San Francisco, THEN to San Diego--and was "late" for boot camp. The military isn't fond of "late".
Fast forward to a couple Januarys later. I decided to fly out and see him before he deployed. Being "comfortable" with flying, I decided to do a connecting flight so I could land closer to where Steve was. I had done this before, and usually connected through Charlotte, NC--a very lovely airport. Unfortunately, there were no return flights through Charlotte-only Atlanta. Those of you that travel frequently are probably laughing your asses off right now.
The flight there went completely flawlessly. And in my mind, I thought, "Could it be? Could it be that I have FINALLY escaped the curse of flying inconveniences?!" OF COURSE NOT! The return flight, I found myself stuck at OAJ (Jacksonville, North Carolina airport) because there was "bad weather" in Atlanta. Atlanta was grounded for something like 4-5 hours. Again, those of you that are experienced with traveling are now laughing even harder--perhaps you fell out of your chair even!
Let me clear this up for those of you wondering why this whole situation is so funny. My mother-in-law once said/heard and passed to me, "Before you go to heaven, you must first pass through Atlanta". I certainly hope this isn't true since Atlanta would more likely be somewhere they would send you to prepare you for hell. It seems like EVERY PLANE IN THE COUNTRY goes through Atlanta (or Denver, but I've already informed you of THEIR abilities).
Once again, you are probably thinking "It was a delay due to weather, not someone else's fault". Stick with me again on this one. After an additional 3-4 hours at OAJ, and a 1 hour flight, I landed in Atlanta. We deplaned on the tarmac because EVERY plane in the country was there since they all have to go through there and the airport had been grounded for 5 hours. We were then directed through a pathway (it was raining, for the record) which eventually led to an emergency exit next to a restroom or something.
I quickly found my next gate so I could sit and wait for my further delayed flight (since now every plane in America is lined up to take OFF from Atlanta). Five additional hours, and three gate changes later, I finally boarded my plane to Minneapolis--at midnight. I was supposed to ARRIVE at midnight.
I got to Minneapolis where my poor parents had to stay with a friend to try to get some sleep, while remaining "on call" to come get me whenever the airlines decided it was my turn to go home. As I stood at baggage claim, dead tired, I wondered how I was ever going to make it through work the next day. I stood in baggage claim and watched bag after bag be taken from the carousel. And waited and waited, when there were only 2 bags left on the carousel, I realized that mine wasn't there and wasn't coming.
I went to the baggage claim lady in tears and she politely informed me that my bags hadn't left Jacksonville. At this point, I should have just laughed, but I didn't...I was not amused. Let me explain something here...
I'm guessing no one, other than my husband, that is reading this has been to OAJ. So here it is. There are 3 gates. Three. Gates. Every gate is in the SAME ROOM. If I am sitting in Gate 3 I will STILL know when my flight is leaving from Gate 1. Honestly, if I was in the RESTROOM I would know. This "gate room" is about 30 yards from where I gave the nice, but apparently incompetent, lady my bags. During the 4 hours that I sat there, there was ONE other flight that left that airport. How did they not get my bag from the ONE LANE baggage check-in, through one of the FOUR DOORS going out of the airport and on to one of the TWO PLANES that were there? Did I mention they had FOUR HOURS to get it there? I still haven't quite figured this one out. Once again, my disastrous flying experience was completely because of someone else's stupidity.
Also, I partly blame airlines for being so ridiculous that they need to send airplanes 2 hours in the wrong direction before they take you where you want to go. Since when is Atlanta "on the way" from North Carolina to Minnesota anyway? Although--even better--I once had the option of a layover in Denver when flying from Minnesota to North Carolina. Figure that one out.
Among these 2 instances, we also had a flight canceled on us for no reason--no bad weather, no plane trouble, just 'cuz'. I have also sat on the tarmac in the plane for 1 hour because the pilot/control tower couldn't find our "take off numbers"--and I was trusting them with flying me home?! There are others too, but I won't continue on.
Meanwhile, here I am FINALLY on my flight to Las Vegas after missing the first one. Why? I'll tell you why. MSP seems to be turning into the most ridiculous airport ever. We got there with what SHOULD have been plenty of time to check in--if people weren't so stupid. We parked, unloaded our bags, made our way through the airport passing right by the "Air France" baggage check (last time I check, Las Vegas is NOT in France) to go upstairs to check my bag. We get up there, and find like a TRILLION people. Attempting to get to the bag check counter, we encountered many of those annoying people who are walking along fine, then randomly decide to stop walking thereby clogging the single lane of available space to walk. I'm pretty sure Steve almost kicked someone out of the way.
Upon arriving at the back check waiting line, a lady told us, "Turn around and go down the escalator at '4' to check your bags. So we did. Guess where that landed us. Come on, just guess! Right at the "Air France" baggage check. Couldn't they have just put a sign down there saying "Don't even bother going upstairs, they're just going to send you back here". So that we wouldn't have wasted 1/2 hour trying to squeeze our way through ridiculously slow moving people only to be told to go back to where we came from? Of course not! That would be silly....?
At the baggage check, we were once again stuck behind people who would stand and stare at the check-in kiosk like it was telling them to strip off all their clothes in Japanese. After 1/2 of waiting, we finally got my bag checked and rushed upstairs to get into the 2 mile (seriously) long line to get through security. It didn't help that they had 1 of their 6 "security checkpoints" closed--although still fully manned--for some reason unknown to man.
We were directed to security check point #6 after being assured that even though it had a line 1 1/2 miles longer than every other checkpoint, it would be the fastest. I'm not convinced.
After over and hour, we made it through security with about 10 minutes until our flight left. Of course, it was at the gate that was the absolute furthest away. After a sorry attempt at running to the gate, we slowed to a power walk. We got there and they checked in our boarding passes and let us through the door. Astonished that a flight could actually go as planned for us, we were rejoicing as we ran down the walkway to the plane. Once we got there, the rather
I'm never flying again...
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