My flight leaves at 11:10, so to be at the airport at 9:10 to clear customs, etc, we get up early and eat at Dunkin Donuts. Mmm! A real American breakfast! We get there and I get in line, and realize that we go though US Customs as soon as we've checked in for the flight. Mary's isn't until 2pm or so, but she goes ahead and checks in now anyway so we can hang out together a little bit longer.
There are hundreds of college age kids going through at the same time we are, so clearing customs isn't very hard. We get into the departures lounge and sit down for the 30 minutes until my flight should board. My flight is on Gulfstream/Continental to Fort Lauderdale, and on US Airways from there to National. I had forgotten while checking in that my itinerary had been changed from Dulles to National, and the ticket agent couldn't give me a boarding pass for the second leg of the flight. There is a US Airways gate in the lounge, so when an agent shows up there, I ask her if she can do it. She says "we can't do that." I ask if she can print tickets, and she only says "we don't do that here." Not very customer service oriented.
Finally my flight is called, and I sit for a moment to watch the other passengers get in line. There aren't any. After a minute, I go up and jokingly ask if I'm the only one on the plane. The woman shrugs and takes my ticket. Mary and I exchange last farewells, and I go downstairs to board. On the tarmac, I'm held back from the plane because it's still fueling. After a couple minutes, the gate agent comes down and guides me to the plane, and tells me that I am in fact the only passenger on board!
Amazing. The pilot seems distressed, and the flight attendant amazed. It sure makes her job easier. The flight is uneventful, and I get to Ft. Lauderdale in good time.
Once I get into the terminal, I go to a US Airways gate and ask to be ticketed on the correct flight to DCA. They say they can't do that at the gate, I must go to the main ticket counter. At the main ticket counter there is a line of people stretching well outside the typical airport rope maze, filled with a hundreds of angry looking people holding crying babies. Not being willing to go from the only customer on a flight to one of hundreds in line, and not being willing to miss my flight as happened on the trip down, I go stand in the First Class line, which has only 2 people. Once at the counter, I tell the agent that I was promised a First Class upgrade when my original flight was canceled at 4:30am ten days ago. She says there's no notation to that effect, but with no more prompting from me, she taps and types for a while and eventually coughs up a first class ticket. That's good service!
I get my shoes shined and board 45 minutes later, and First Class is (duh) a whole lot nicer than coach. Unfortunately the flight has a stop in Charlotte on the way to DC, so it's not as quick as it could be. On the descent into Charlotte, the congestion from my cold makes it impossible for my ears to equalize. Ouch! Ouch! It's not very comfortable, plus now I can't hear very well. My ears feel OK after we take off again and get to altitude, but they hurt again when we start descending in to DC. They will take a couple days to fully clear up as my cold wears away.
I realized somewhere along the way that my bags had been checked through on the old ticket and are going to end up in Dulles, and my baggage claim stubs confirm this. After getting out to my car and paying $126 to get out of the garage, I go home and lie down to wait out rush hour traffic and hope my head clears up some. At 8pm I drive to Dulles and pick up my bags, which are intact and haven't been torn apart by any itinerant customs agents looking for Cuban contraband. At least I got to sit in first class for the trouble of driving an hour and a half round trip to get my possessions back.
 Previous |
 Up |