Friday, June 22, 2007
Good news, bad news
The good news: I have made it to terra firma, and in the good ole United States of America, to boot.
The bad news: We are landed at Stewart Air National Guard base on the banks of the middle Hudson River, rather than Newark Liberty International Airport. Apparently there were huge thunderboomers over Newark a little earlier in the afternoon, and it backed up the traffic so much that our own holding pattern would have consumed all our remaining fuel, and then some.
So we stopped here for gas.
The crew immediately opened the door to pump through fresh air and released the passengers to stand in the aisles, so nobody has freaked yet. No flowing sewage yet...
Wow! They just announced we're taking off for a 14 minute flight...
The Verizon Wireless Aircard works marvelously here, by the way!
UPDATE (8:10 pm): As my daughter would say, I'm a loser. Literally. "They" -- meaning either Air France or Continental -- lost my fracking bags. It took them forever to de-bag my flight, and when they did I was the last fool standing there. Well, me and some family's mom.
They "hope" to get them to me this weekend at some point, and gave me a number to call if they do not.
Now, I maintain a very even mood when I travel, generally taking what comes. I do not blame the airlines for most of the many indignities that we suffer when we fly.
But I do blame them when they lose my bags. So when the Continental Airlines bag lady snapped at me for having let a teensy bit of grumpyness slip out and declared that she had everything "totally under control," only my knowledge that she could send those bags to Lagos with a flick of her fingers kept me from answering, "not obviously."
7 Comments:
By 
Christopher Chambers, at
Fri Jun 22, 05:14:00 PM:
I was about to indeed ask if it was a Continental flight. Continental's toilet fiasco was well publicized.
By Escort81, at
Fri Jun 22, 08:54:00 PM:
TH -
Be careful, or you'll end up like the Adam Sandler character in "Anger Management."
Generally, it's OK to snap out at airline employees if they truly deserve it, but a mistake to do it to TSA personnel, since they can really mess up your travel from a legal standpoint.
I suppose from the perspective of your loyal blog readers, you'd have more time to post if you are in lock up at EWR 24/7!
I guess it's a good thing you went to law school.
Good luck getting your bag this weekend.
By Viking Kaj, at
Fri Jun 22, 09:09:00 PM:
Watch the grumpiness or they will call out the feds on you. Airline employees are taking this complaint thing very seriously. You may be branded a terrorista!
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jun 22, 09:10:00 PM:
I never snap at TSA guys, and was very friendly to the Customs officers. I do think, though, that when an airline loses your bags they should apologize profusely and make one's status as a loser as bearable as possible.
By SR, at
Fri Jun 22, 10:44:00 PM:
Lost bags are such a common occurrence that the airlines must be treating it like crime. Manage it.
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Jun 22, 11:04:00 PM:
I must be missing something. Bags are such an important part of security, one would think they would be precisely tracked, and each individual bag able to be located within inches instantly from beginning to destination.
Can you tell I don’t fly? :)
Perhaps they need some FedEx tech, or a RFID baggage strap you can wrap around your suitcase once it has been inspected, with a detachable tag you can carry around. “Let me scan your tag. Yes Mr. Hawk, your bags have just left Denver International en route to Cleveland. They should be here in Florida in 17 hours.”
By Purple Avenger, at
Sat Jun 23, 08:11:00 AM:
When I was flying several times a week, my solution was simply never bring more than fit in a carry on bag.
That meant occasionally finding a local laundry or other misc items locally, but the "acceleration factor" getting you into and out of the airports was well worth the subsequent problems -- because those could be dealt with at your leisure and didn't involve people you wanted to strangle.
