Not so good Spirits I flew back out yesterday, returning from Christmas vacation. I thought it'd be a routine flight - DTW to LAX, taking 4 real hours, but only two on paper. We were supposed to leave at 9am, which would get me back to LA at 11am and allow me to attend my noon Spanish class. But since when does flying go as planned?I arrived at DTW a little after 8, which I thought was incredibly late given that TSA security lines are miles long these days, often requiring 15 or 20 minutes to get through. I had planned to get to the airport a little earlier than this, but it took my ride (also known as my sister) a while to wake up :) To my surprise, however, I got my ticket, secured an exit row, and made it to the gate in under 3 minutes! At DTW, Spirit has it's own security line, so there's no mixing with other airlines thereby creating long lines. It seemed, finally, airlines are starting to figure this flying thing out. Sure enough, however, I'd spoken too soon. As we stood around waiting for crew to get the plane ready for boarding (this after standing around for like a half hour waiting for the plane to actually arrive), we got the announcement: "due to weight issues, we're going to stop in Las Vegas to re-fuel." "Re-fuel," did I hear them correctly, "re-fuel"?!?! In the past few years I've flown a fair amount. Had luggage lost and damaged, flights delayed and canceled, experienced sketchy landings and over worked crew members, but never re-fueling. I realize on some routes, re-fueling is necessary, but I was under the impression that it took somewhere around 20+ hours in the sky before it happened, not 4. And I've heard of airplanes having to be weight conscious, but I didn't think the larger aircraft had to worry about that. I stand corrected. The lady at the gate said the re-fueling would cost us about 20 minutes - yea right! When I finally got on the plane it was a little after 10. It was another few minutes before we actually pushed back, making our take off time about an hour and half later than it was supposed to be. Ouch. Vegas or not, making that noon class was going to be impossible now. My 3:00 still had a chance though. As we approached 30,000 feet, the pilot gave his customary flight welcome/update. He took the opportunity to give us a more accurate guestimate of our Vegas stop: 40 minutes. I wasn't surprised, 20 minutes felt a bit too optimistic. With the exit row at my feet, I managed to spread out and get some rest. When we got to Vegas, they got right to business, heading straight for the gate starting the gas up. It was about noon at this point, the time my ride was supposed to pick me up from LAX. Fortunately the guy sitting next to me let me borrow his phone so I could relay the news. Unfortunately, however, noon was the only time he could get me, so I'd have to fend for myself getting back to Pasadena. While gassing, they didn't let us off the plane, which, in a group this large could have easily added another day onto the trip. And the pilot was right, 40 minutes later they were ready to go. However, there was some runway traffic we had to fight through, adding about 15 minutes onto the Vegas visit. The flight from Vegas to LA isn't that long. It was one of those, "we're now at 30,000 feet, flight attendants, prepare for landing." When we touched down it seemed like it took forever to get to the gate. We got off the plane a little after 2, but it was another hour before my bag came out of the gate. That's right, instead being out of there at 11am, I was out of there at 3pm. And I wasn't even out yet, I was faced with the "make sure you have your bag" line. Before you could leave the airport, you had to prove to some airport security person that the bag you just pulled off the conveyer belt was yours! I'd had enough. I walked to the exit of the next terminal (where they weren't checking bag/ID's for some reason) and walked out. Since it was now 3, I knew spending a lot of money to get back to Pasadena was futile. I decided to take the train home, a tried and true method. Unfortunately, it's a 2 hour journey (in retrospect, even if I had taken a shuttle back it would have probably taken in upwards of an hour being that we'd be smack-dab in the middle of rush hour traffic). So, what was supposed to be a smooth Monday turned into anything but.
0 Comments: |
| Powered by Blogger | © 2004-2008 The Permville Network |