Greetings,
For those of you who had heard about my now infamous travel luck, this
should come as no surprise. Another trip from hell (or perhaps
there and back). It took me 16 hours to get home from Hartford, 11
of those on the ground somewhere. I booked through Dulles knowing
that they seldom get snowed or iced in (I grew up in Baltimore, which has
similar weather). Well, not yesterday, and combined with the
problems at ORD (another big United hub), they were having trouble
getting planes to Hartford so they could fly them out. Here are
some of the lowlights:
- No aircraft at Hartford - it was stuck at Dulles. They finally
put all of us from that regional jet on a 737 that came in from
Chicago. I left Hartford an hour late, but the flight I ended up on
was more like 4 hours late and most on it had already missed connecting
flights.
- The wireless Internet at Hartford was broken. I had work to do,
but no Internet or e-mail.
- Arrived at Dulles (IAD) an hour late, but I still had over an hour to
make my 8:20 p.m. flight to Oakland. It was listed as on time so I
grabbed a carry-out dinner.
- In 20 minutes time, the departure time changed from 8:20 to 9:15 to
10:00 to 11:00.
- The aircraft was there, but various problems were cited: Flight
crew time expired, lack of crews to staff the deicing equipment, and on
and on.
- No Internet available anywhere in the Dulles airport.
- We eventually boarded around midnight, but waited 45 minutes for
de-icing. They must have had only one guy doing this job by then
because there weren't many departures.
- The video system malfunctioned, so they had to do the safety demo
live.
- The PA system malfunctioned two-thirds through the safety demo, so
the chief flight attendant (a real piece of work) insisted on starting
over from the top.
- A passenger one row in front of me made fun of the demo, so the chief
flight attendant (who was up in first class and didn't see the incident
the same way I did from across the aisle) decided to report the passenger
to the pilot. Him shouting at her from 12 rows away (things like
"We are working and you are making fools of us!") didn't help
matters. We returned to the gate and the police boarded the plane
to remover the passenger. But the chief attendant also had
the passenger sitting next to her removed even though he hadn't
done anything. It seems his feelings were hurt, so someone was
going to pay. This cost us another hour on the ground.
- After the third time through the safety demo, the chief was satisfied
with the performance.
- The movie ran, but no audio.
- When I reclined my seat, the guy behind me would grab it and shake it
violently, complaining he didn't have enough room. Normally, I
would take this up with the flight crew, but I feared the nazi in charge
would have me arrested when we got to Oakland if I complained about
anything.
- My bag wasn't there when I arrived. I figured with all that
ground time, someone would think of something clever to do with it, and
they did. The crack crew in Hartford managed to send it to
Chicago. They called a while ago and apparently got it to Oakland
(12 hours after my arrival here) and will deliver it this evening.
With my luck, TSA will blow it up before it leaves the airport.
73,
Andy Oppel, N6AJO
Vice Director, Pacific Division
American Radio Relay League (ARRL)
The National Association for Amateur Radio
n6ajo@arrl.org
home: (510) 864-2299
cell: (510) 851-6214