Traveling again
I'm on the way to DC for a funeral. Not the best of pretenses to be traveling under, but at least I get to see family I haven't seen in a long time, plus some old friends along my travel route.
United screwed me over with the online checkin again. Last time I tried to checkin online, after they sent me an email reminding me to do so, and it wouldn't let me. Of course I got a crap seat.
This time I got no reminder email, and it slipped my mind. When I remembered, I figured they'd stopped that service and I'd have to checkin at the airport regardless. To be safe I tried anyway, and lo and behold, not only can you checkin online for this flight, but all the seats were taken.
I may not make my flight at all. I am currently on standby. This won't be much of a consolation to my bereaved family out east. Why I continue to fly on United Airlines is a mystery.
At least I avoided a connection at O'Hare this time. O'Hare is a great place to kill time, but who wants to kill time at an airport? Other than that, I effin' hate O'Hare. I have nothing against the workers there, it's just unbelievably off the scale too big.
Take any good sized regional airport and multiply it by 5 (there are actually 5 separate terminals, each of which is the size of a "normal" airport terminal). And may god help you if you've got to switch terminals. Let's just say you better have at least an hour layover.
Because of O'Hare's immense size, too many planes are trying to use too few runways and every single flight is delayed. I've been on the plane waiting for takeoff when the captain announced that we were number 40 something in line. I've circled the airspace no less than three times waiting to land. One of my friends from Chicago considered the flight time on his ticket to be the time he should arrive at the airport, assuming every flight was going to be at least 30 minutes late. He never missed a flight.
Instead I got Denver for my transfer, an airport I haven't been to since spring break my senior year in highschool, 10.5 years ago. It was brand new then and I recall it fondly, but that's mostly because security didn't confiscate my booze (I was 18).
Since I probably won't be blogging at all for a week, I'll leave you with this nugget of wisdom on the difference between men and women (video, worksafe as long as you don't follow any links). Maybe there's something to the Arab way of looking at things afterall...
posted by RWBB @ 10/08/2006 08:05:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
and god forbid there be any weather. Because there's hardly ever weather in the chicago area for the airport guys to think they might want to plan around it.
One thing Ohare does have going for it: Security knows what the hell they're doing, and whatever color the alert system is at, you can show up an hour before your flight and be ready to board in time. You're plane won't leave on time if it sprinkled in the morning, but you won't have gotten to the airport 3 hours early for your hour late flight.
Don't know how I missed this comment, but here's a reply anyway.
Yeah, O'Hare isn't bad about the security. I forgot how truly horrible security can be until I was coming back to Seattle via Dulles in DC.
The line snaked all the way down the length of the entire airport, and then BACK on itself. I wouldn't have been so bothered had the path not been along no less than 5 or 6 dormant security stations.
And all along the way there are these huge plasma screens dispensing pro-Dulles propaganda (there's no other way to describe it). Have you even played Half Life 2?
It was like the Administrator explaining in that droning-yet-calming voice how self castration is good for the people. I just about went batshit insane, except for the cute girl I was talking to in line.
If O'Hare wins for being just too damn big, Dulles may win in utter ineptness.
it's not just dulles. BWI is like that, and I seem to remember san jose like that, and Charles du Gaul was about the worst I've ever been to. We got to the airport 2.5 hours early, and stood in line for 2 hours to get through security and then 1/2 hour to get through second security to get on the plain.
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