If you want to have a good time, follow me onto an airplane sometime. Over the past couple of years, I've been lucky enough to be seated on flights where fistfights have nearly broken out -- during takeoff, no less -- where surly passengers bumped from first class have made such scenes they've actually pulled the plane back up to the gate to let security officers board, where I've actually seen pilots get out of the airplane, walk under the wing and yank on the flaps, presumably to get them unstuck. And this was all before Sept. 11, when scenes of this ilk were just bizarre, not utterly terrifying.
So it was with some trepidation that I took my first post-Sept. 11 flight a few weeks back. And boy, it did not disappoint! Thank the fine, hardworking folk at a certain airline which I won't mention, but has at least one plane literally slathered with Arizona Cardinals logos -- which probably should have been my first warning to try and cash my ticket in for a Greyhound fare. I mean, the only thing that could possibly have been worse is if they had a silhouette of Michael Dukakis painted on the tail.
[long-winded rant]
Believe it or not, I'm not one to complain about long airport lines and flight delays -- I typically save my vitrol for things that really deserve it, like supposedly wholesome family comics and grocery stores that keep cutouts of beheaded pharmacists standing around for months. But I think you'll agree this was a particularly entertaining experience.
It all started at BWI airport, where I was inexplicably directed to the "international pier," which was neither a pier nor international, since I was flying, not sailing, and to Phoenix, not Poland. But the plane was at the gate when I got there, which is always a Good Sign. Except, of course, when the helpful ground crew gets on the mike and announces that there's something wrong with the plane, so the flight's been canceled, so please walk back to the main ticketing area to be rebooked on another flight and have a nice day.
A lot of grumbling. A long walk. A long line. And one surly employee doing anything and everything but rebooking anyone on any flight anywhere. After about 20 minutes, another employee of what for simplicity's sake I'll just call Dukakis Airlines gets in front of us and says the following highly reassuring sentence: "We think we'll be able to fix the airplane, so grab your stuff and go back to your gate. The flight's still on."
A lot of grumbling. A long walk. A longer line at security, punctuated by the fragrant aroma of shoe inspections. Back at the gate, the plane's still there, and still pitch dark. No one's in it, no one's around it. And the gate crew's still insisting that it's leaving in 20 minutes. That 20 minutes stretches into an hour, maybe even two, and they're still claiming the plane's going to be fixed. Of course, it's still as dark and vacant as a cave in the Tora Bora suburbs. No matter, they claim, you're still set... but could everyone that was connecting on to San Francisco report to the counter?
So that handful of doomed souls wanders off in search of another flight, and still we sit. Meanwhile, at the gate next to us, another Dukakis Airlines flight is boarding -- pay attention here, because this becomes important in a minute. They finish and close the door. And still we wait, staring out the window at a dark plane that's supposedly being fixed.
Then suddenly, they announce that they're boarding the flight to Phoenix -- again, this is an important detail. So they open the door to the gate and lead us down the skyway. I'm maybe the second or third person in line, so I have no idea something's amiss until I see the people in front of me stop and demand, "We're going WHERE?"
Not really wanting to know what the problem was, I wander past them onto the airplane, which I notice happens to be almost completely full, even though I'm the first in our luckless contingent to board. A flight attendant greets me by staring at my outstretched boarding pass as if it were a cute and furry but very dead animal.
"Why are you trying to get on this plane?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.
And it hits me: They tricked us into boarding another flight without telling us. Worse yet, they didn't even bother to tell the crew on the plane they were herding us onto what was going on. And no, I am not kidding.
Long story short, it turns out the flight was heading to Vegas, which give or take 500 miles, is pretty much like Phoenix, only with gambling and hookers. There were whispers that there was a connecting flight to Phoenix there, but the flight crew decided to take the lack of notice out on us by loudly announcing that they wouldn't answer any questions about connections. They even joked about it during the pre-flight announcements, wishing us a "fun-filled 5 hours and 23 minutes to Vegas."
At this point, I'm convinced that it's probably illegal to board people onto a plane without telling them where it's going. But I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. Then as the plane descends into Vegas, the cap'n gets into the fun. "Well, for those of you trying to connect, I have some information for you," he said. "Those of you who were hoping to ultimately get to Los Angeles, there's a flight leaving in 5 minutes. But they've decided not to wait for you, and we're parking on the other side of the airport, so..." As for us doomed souls heading to Phoenix, another flight was leaving in 5 minutes, too, he continued, but the "good" news was that it was boarding right next to our arrival gate, so we'd "probably" make it.
"Probably." Not if the ground crew there had anything to do with it.
Because the aforementioned stew had barked at me to sit down immediately when I boarded the plane, I was right next to the bulkhead and one of the first people off. I sprint through the skyway and see them getting ready to close up the gate for the Phoenix flight, so I race to the gate, only to be stopped by a pimply-faced security guard who might--might!--have been 14. (Since this was Vegas, he presumably was too young for a casino job, so airline security was his last resort.)
"I need to do a random security check, sir. Take off your shoes," he said, voice cracking ever so slightly. As I politely explained that I had just gotten off a connecting flight and had already cleared security -- twice -- that evening, the growing line of Phoenix-bound people from my flight forming behind me start yelling at him. So he abruptly stops waving a wand around my extremities and waves me on, and at this point, I'm wondering what was worse -- that the people behind me were yelling at the prepubescent security guard, or that he actually decided not to search me because people were yelling at him. ("Yes, sir, I realize he was clutching a flight manual and was foaming at the mouth, but people were raising their voices!")
Anyway. I step back into my shoes and am promptly stopped again, this time by an Air Dukakis employee who started calling me "honey" a lot (and even though I'm happily married and have a spouse and two children who presumably love me, trust me -- I'm nobody's honey), and once again, examining my boarding pass as if it were some sort of toxic effluvent.
"What's this?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. After explaining our little journey, she shook her head. "No one in Baltimore told us anything about this, honey. Don't think you can board the plane." As the people behind me in line again began yelling at her, she disappeared with my boarding pass -- again, a seemingly insignificant detail that becomes important in a moment.
As it becomes clear they've got an angry mob on their hands, the ground crew relents. "Okay, if you can find a seat, you can fly to Phoenix!" they announce to the mob, and whoever else might have been walking by at the moment. Or words to that effect.
"What about my boarding pass?" I ask back.
"Your what?"
"You have my boarding pass!" I reply. They shrug and point at the gate, so I go ahead and board yet another airplane with no documentation whatsoever -- and boy, combined with the aborted security sweep, does that ever make me feel safe about flying. And once again, no one had bothered to tell the stews on board what was going on, but it was now well past midnight local time, so they just rolled their eyes and told everyone to find a seat somewhere. Mine was on the wing, I think.
No, no, just kidding. And then, as the plane took off for Phoenix, a final insult to my shattered nerves. The woman in the seat directly behind me starts muttering -- just loud enough for me and nobody else to hear -- "Oh, God. That's a weird noise. The plane's going to crash. Oh, God. That's a weird noise. The plane's going to crash. Oh, God..."
[/long-winded rant]
So that was that. But when I finally got back to Northern Virginia, it was all I could do to keep from sprinting to the Bizarro ----way and kissing the first disinterested employee I saw on the lips.