The food on board was not that impressive either… (though, the flight was operated by Lufthansa, so I guess I can’t blame that on Austrian Airlines:) )

I arrived in Dubai yesterday evening, but unfortunately my baggage didn’t. For reasons unknown, it was never loaded on the plane from Copenhagen, so I waited for over an hour at the baggage carousel in Dubai. I then went to the lost luggage office at the airport and filed a report. They informed me that my bag would be on the plane tonight and that I would be contacted regarding delivery. However, no one has contacted me and when I tried to call the 24h number for the office in Dubai, nobody answered the phone.

Instead, I was tortured by the most terrible, noisy music at full blast, so after 30 minutes I had enough of it and hung up. The online file-tracking system hasn’t been to much help either. I have now sent a not-so-friendly mail to Austrian Airlines complaining about the situation. I’ve traveled a lot through the years and it is not the first time that my bag does not reach the intended destination. However, it is the first time that I have experienced such poor service regarding delayed baggage. Thanks a lot for messing up my evening, Austrian Airlines!

I realized this trip that the “American experience” doesn’t begin when we touch down at O’Hare — it starts the minute you step on a United plane, which I’m convinced is always full of 90% Americans, many of whom speak in Chicago accents. There were these two women behind me, who by their voices I guessed were in their early 20s. They were gossiping, laughing obnoxiously loudly, and flirting with the Rugby team on board. (Yes, there was an entire Rugby team on the plane, who spent the entire flight standing in the aisles, whooping and hollering. It’s a good thing I don’t sleep on planes.) I got a glimpse of the women when I got up to use the “toilet cubicle” and was surprised that they looked in their 40s. Ah, American, where you’re never too old to talk like a Valley Girl.

I was still in London mode when the beverage cart came by. I told the flight attendant I wanted “still water with ice.” She looked at me puzzled. “So you want water, then?” Right — when you say “water” in American, still and ice are implied.

I always fly United because of their Mileage Plus program, which is probably called something else now that they merged with Continental. I used to have a high status which meant that I could check up to three bags weighing 70 lbs and got to go in the airport lounge. I didn’t fly as much last year so I lost that status, which means I got to check one bag and it had to be under 50 lbs. “Challenge accepted,” I said, and proceeded to weigh my bag using Wii Fit before I left. When it was only 48 lbs, I threw in an extra book. According to the airport scale, it was 22.6 kg, which is 49.8 lbs. I packed a lot of clothes that I want to sell or donate here, which hopefully means I will still be under 50 lbs for the flight back. I do make the same mistake every time I come back here, either from Chicago or London — I pack an outfit for almost every day, knowing full well I will go shopping and then want to wear all those new clothes. I never seem to learn.

Anyway…

When we landed in Chicago, I had to recheck my bag. It took forever to come onto the carousel because I no longer get the “priority” baggage tag. I got to speed through immigration because I had a connecting flight, but I still had to recheck the bag and go through security again, and I only had an hour before my flight to Cincinnati left. I think I burned off my in-flight meal power walking.

While on the tram to terminal 2, I overheard a United flight crew talking. “Ever since the merge, things have been a mess,” one flight attendant said. “They’re making everything Continental, and it’s so much worse.” I was surprised she was talking so opening about it in public, especially fully dressed in company uniform. Call it a coincidence or blame Continental, but when I got to Cincinnati, I found out my giant suitcase did not. I knew something was wrong when the baggage carousel shut off. I filed a delayed baggage report (I like that they use “delayed” instead of “lost”), and they told me it was on the next flight to Cincinnati and would arrive around 9 pm. I couldn’t believe that I was able to transfer terminals, queue for security, run through the airport and still make my flight, while my suitcase could not. I called the number they gave me last night and the message said “Your bag has left the airport and is out for delivery.” “Great,” I thought. “I can take a shower and put on clean clothes tonight!” But then another hour passed and there was no bag. Then another hour. Eventually it was midnight and I felt like I was going to die. When you’ve been up for almost 24 hours and just spent all day on a plane sitting next to a sick guy, the last thing you want to do is wait up for a bag that isn’t coming. So I gave up and went to sleep, hoping the doorbell would pull me out of my coma. Of course there was no doorbell and it’s now past 11 a.m. and I still don’t have my bag. And because I was so concerned about my luggage weight, I filled my carry-on with shoes, jeans and a blazer — absolutely nothing useful except for my glasses and hair brush. Luckily I had a toothbrush and some toiletries here or else I’d be really hurting. I guess there’s a reason they tell you to pack a change of clothes and necessities in your carry-on…

I’m no frequent flyer, but I usually fly 1-2 times a year. I have never had a big problem. A few delays maybe, but nothing to cry about. This flight, however, was of nightmare proportions! I left PDX right on time, heading for my layover at Chicago O’Hare. When I got there I realized I had about 50 minutes until my next flight. Of course my next gate was in another wing (Do they EVER make it easy to change flights?), so I had to make a run for Terminal B, gate F11. My United flight was supposed to leave at 6:45 PM. Oh, and on my almost-4-hour flight to Chicago, there had been no meal service. Four hours on a plane and no meal service? Plus paying for my checked bags?

By the time I got to Chicago I was starving, but I was afraid to stop for food because my next flight was coming up soon. I found gate F11…there were 6 screens up and not one of them said Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which was my final destination. I went up to the counter. Finally a man asked how he could help me. I asked about my flight, and he said it was the correct gate. It was about 6:20, which  meant it was almost boarding time, so I grabbed a bag of chips (ugh!!!) from the nearest kiosk and waited for the lineup.  20 minutes later there was an announcement, “Flight #### to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre will be delayed. We will be boarding the flight at 7:30.” Rats! I looked at the girl next to me, who was having the same reaction. She shook her head and grumbled. We got to talking and I found out that Stefanie lived in Scranton, and had been waiting at O’Hare since 2:00 PM. No wonder she was grumbling! 7:30 was close enough that I felt uneasy about searching for food. We were at a dead-end and there wasn’t much available close by. So I waited, and ate a Luna bar that I had packed for emergencies.

At 7:30, it was the same story, only the gate employee gave us the information that the plane was actually in the hold, but we were waiting on crew members to arrive. I had a fleeting thought of volunteering to be a flight attendant. Instead, I waited.

At 8:30 an employee grabbed for the microphone and everyone at the gate bristled. “Flight #### to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre will not be departing at 8:30…we actually don’t know where the crew is, so we’re going to delay the flight until 9:45.” Sounds of surprise and aggravation were heard across the room. At that point I got mad and went to find something to eat. I found a grill and bar that was open and grabbed a Greek salad with chicken. Stefanie looked at it longingly when I sat down. Shortly after I returned to the gate, the announcements started. “Flight #### to Cedar Rapids is cancelled,” the gate attendant announced. “Flight #### to Lincoln has been cancelled.” Stefanie and I looked at each other with dread. Did none of these flights have crews? Would ours be next? Did they forget to schedule crews for all of these flights?? All in all, five flights were cancelled. Ours was called last, at 10:30. We were instructed to go upstairs to the service desk for overnight accommodations and to reschedule our flights. Stefanie and I raced upstairs…only to be met by a line that snaked all the way down the terminal. I’m talking at least 200 people. One clerk, 200 people. We groaned, and got in line. We started talking to the people around us. Soon we had a posse: David, a fast-talking sales guy from Scranton, Stefanie, my buddy from the gate, Mika, a woman from California, and me. Mika’s story was the worst, hands down. She had to be at a wedding the next day at 1:00 PM. David and Stefanie were the lucky ones since they lived in Scranton.

So we waited. It seemed the line was not moving at all. Finally a man came and told the back half of the line to go downstairs to another desk where more representatives could help us. We were trying to be cheery. We got to know each other a little, shared other flight horror stories, and giggled so we wouldn’t cry. David suggested we rent a car with the four of us. It was about 12 hours to Scranton from Chicago. I reminded him he’d be travelling with three women, so it would be more like 14 with bathroom breaks. He told us to forget it. Then we hit the front of the line. We heard that there was a flight leaving at 7 AM to Scranton via Detroit, and we all wanted on it. Stefanie had been on the phone the entire time we stood in the queue. She got a hold of her travel agent and quickly realized she didn’t have to wait in line. She’d book a new flight and expense the whole thing. So she waved goodbye and  jetted away to the Hilton across the street. The rest of us weren’t so lucky. We were on personal trips and couldn’t afford to just buy another flight.

When I got to the representative, I asked her what was available. She said there were some direct flights to Allentown and Harrisburg, but none to Scranton. For some reason, I got it in my head that Harrisburg was closer than Scranton, so I asked to be put on the 9:00 AM to Harrisburg. Score! She gave me my hotel and food voucher, and I waited for David and Mika to finish up with their arrangements.  They were lucky enough to grab tickets to the 7:00 AM flight to Scranton via Detroit. By the time we were at the front of the queue, the airport Hilton was completely booked. We were assigned the Crowne Plaza. We grabbed our carry-ons and headed to the shuttle. We waited for the shuttle, and waited some more. After about 25 minutes we were getting a little testy. In the meantime I called my father to tell him the good news about the Harrisburg flight. “Harrisburg!! Aaarrgh! That’s twice as far!” Uh oh. I wanted to cry at this point. I felt like a total moron.

David pointed out that there was a chance I could still get on the Detroit-Scranton flight, but I was just too cranky and tired to care. He grabbed my Harrisburg reservations, whipped out his phone and started talking. He was on the phone for 45 minutes, and I’m not sure how he did it, but he somehow got me a seat on the flight. I wanted to kiss him! During this time the hotel shuttle finally came, and we were off…to the scariest location EVER. The shuttle took us 20 minutes away from the airport to a Crowne Plaza. It was a beautiful hotel inside, but the location made us not want to walk outside at all. The three of us walked in…just in time to get in yet another line. By this time it was 1:00 AM, and we were really sick of lines. When we got to the front, we were assigned our rooms. The nice lady at the front desk swept her hand to the side to indicate the free incidentals we might need. “Do you have saline solution?” I asked, desperately hoping. I’d been wearing my contacts for about  16 hours and my eyes were burning madly. “No, I’m sorry dear. The gift shop is closed and won’t open until 8:00 AM tomorrow morning.” Our shuttle was to leave at 5:00 AM.

I did what I had to do. I walked up and down the line of remaining travellers and asked if anyone had saline solution. One man did, and I almost hugged him. (I should have, he was pretty cute!) I raced upstairs to my room and grabbed two drinking glasses, raced back downstairs and grabbed my glasses that I had thankfully packed in my carry-on, and pulled those suckers out of my eyes and dropped them into the cups. Ahhh…

David, Mika, and I went up to our rooms and flopped into bed. It was now 1:30 AM, and our wake-up call was at 4:30 so we could make the shuttle at 5:00. I slept fitfully, worried I wouldn’t hear the wake-up call. Fortunately, I did wake up. When we got to the airport we headed to the desk to get our new travel documents. Mika got hers right away. David and I…we had seat numbers, but no reservation! Please don’t ask me how this is possible because I don’t understand it myself. David started fast-talking, and worked it out. Whew! We went to the gate and finally, finally, boarded the Delta flight, reuniting with Stefanie in the meantime, who had also gotten on the new flight. The trip to Detroit was thankfully short. My seatmate was a man in his 40s, and was a fun conversationalist. When we landed in Detroit, the four of us waited for each other and went to the next gate. We were anxiously awaiting our final destination, and I thought, we should memorialize this! Here is the picture that resulted:

It’s also a very stressful time. We’ve got great expectations of what will be and should be over the holidays. Many of us are traveling from here to there and our sheer numbers in tight places make everything a wee bit more difficult. Sometimes we even forget about being thankful for each other and we slip into a wee bit of holiday rage. You know, that time when we may yell at a fellow traveler for taking up too much overhead bin space or trample our neighbor in an effort to the get that special Black Friday deal.

I love spending time with family for the holidays, but I am not a big fan of the traveling. For some reason United Airlines thinks it’s funny to repeatedly lose our luggage. Last year over Christmas our suitcase was delivered to us after 5 days, right before we turned around to fly back home. Well worth the $15 each way we paid to have it flown to Pennsylvania in the first place.

This time we flew directly to Pennsylvania from Los Angeles, not passing go, not collecting two hundred dollars. I really did think to myself, “what could possibly go wrong?”

Our bags were delayed. It’s a sad and lonely feeling when you’re standing at the baggage carousel, watching the bags come out and twirl around on the belt. The people you flew in with are collecting their luggage and going off to have their adventures while you continue to stand there, waiting. Finally the belt stops and you are alone, still waiting for a bag that isn’t coming.

In this particular instance it only took just over one full day for our baggage to arrive but we were put through the wringer by United’s baggage claim staff while waiting. There were several times I caught them lying to me and when I called them on it they’d punish me by placing me on hold for increasingly long periods of time. Finally, I heard from the delivery company that United contracts to and after being told all day that the delivery company is unreachable by the public I was informed that they are public and they were shocked to hear that I was told by United that I could not contact them. The reason why, I learned from the delivery company, was that my luggage had only just arrived with them, which was in direct opposition to what I was told throughout the day by United.

So here you read me telling you that I caught United Airlines as a company, through their employees, lying to me and treating me badly. In order to give them their say I contacted them, told them I was writing this and asked if they would like to comment, promising to include it here. My response was a form letter telling me how to go about filing claims for delayed or damaged luggage. Should they reply in person at a later date I will place their response in the comments section.

The moral of the story, I believe, is that people will continue to be people, not always nice, often only looking out for themselves. Companies do the same to an even greater degree, but we continue to deal with it to get to spend time with the people we love.

That said, there’s no reason we should continue to put up with such treatment from the companies that rely on our patronage for their continued existence. We should demand better and if enough of us do it then they will treat us well and make that time we spend with our families even more precious.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I suppose I shouldn’t really complain. My navy-blue American Tourister had a reasonably peaceful afternoon upon arrival on Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, where it was tagged and placed on a conveyor belt on its way to being deposited into the belly of an aircraft. At least it knew where it was going. Unlike myself, who spent several hours running back and forth between the pay phone and the airline check-in desk, wondering if I’d ever make it back to Blighty.

You see, I was supposed to fly to Denver, then change planes to London, had the flight to Denver out of San Francisco not been delayed by two hours, thereby making the connection an impossibility. Apparently San Francisco International Airport is notorious for delays, as is this particular airline. Several conversations with telephone reservations as well as the check-in people at the airport later, I ended up with a colourful hodgepodge of bookings, offering me routing through Chicago, Washington, and Los Angeles (along with a couple of standby reservations), the airline neglecting to mention that I was no longer on any Denver to London flights for either the original day or the following day, despite my being told at check-in that I had two bookings from Denver to London for both Saturday and Sunday, and despite my suitcase being checked through from San Francisco to Denver to London, and despite my boarding passes from San Francisco to Denver to London, and despite a non-refundable Denver hotel reservation only moments away from being booked and paid for. (The airline refused to pay for a hotel.)

Who is this glorious airline? Will I be sued if I tell? Let’s just say that their name begins with a “U” and ends with a “D”. And I will avoid them like the bloody plague next time I get my arse booked on a flight to America.

By the time I made what would be (or so I thought) my final flight booking, which was to be via LA (with yet another hotel room due to be reserved and paid for so that I could fly out to London the next afternoon), I went racing back through security to the check-in counter, jumped the queue (don’t cross me when I’m stressed), and tried to get my suitcase back. Well, U****D wasn’t having it, despite the nearly two hours they had in which to retrieve it. So while I was panicking about having to stay at a hotel overnight with nothing but the clothes on my back and a couple of Granny Smith apples, someone FINALLY decided to do something that actually made a bit of sense: get me on another airline to London that same evening. Ergo I was placed on stand-by with British Airways (ahh… civilisation). After trekking to the international terminal and finally locating the BA counter (do they want people to actually find them???), a new boarding card was placed in my sweaty little hand.

Of course the fun wasn’t over yet. I must’ve looked either very dodgy or very deranged – or else it was because I came from the big bad domestic terminal and from another carrier, but I got singled out for an extensive security search. Now, get your mind out of the gutter – we aren’t talking strip search here, although I did receive the cheap thrill of getting air blown on me in some glassed-in cubicle. Ooh, the life of an erotic writer!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I can take it; I’ve been through worse in my lifetime. But I definitely draw the line when it comes to my bear. You harm one hair on his furry little head and you’re dead meat, mate! Well, the poor guy was removed from his warm and cosy little backpack, placed on a cold metal table, and treated to the indignity of being manhandled by some security geezer at SFO. I sat by and kept a very close watch, since Teddy is still technically underage – and there ARE laws against this sort of thing in America. Teddy survived unscathed (wish I could say the same thing about myself), and Mr. Security Man offered us both a bright California smile. I should add that the gentleman seemed far more involved in a relationship with my shoes, a characteristic I find rather worrisome in a man.

Now for the contents of my errant suitcase: I’m quite worried about the fate of my sexy little Staind vest top, which I need for this Friday night, since I’m going to see the Massachusetts lads at the O2 Arena in London. Add to this some cookies from Trader Joe’s and the earrings I bought in Wales – these things are not so easily replaced. Teddy also had a nifty pair of shades in the suitcase, which sadly he never got to wear, since he spent most of his time in bed or else avoiding a rather dodgy feline character named Oliver.

It’s all well and good to file a lost baggage claim and get a few quid out of the deal, but trying to replace all those items, and taking the time to replace them… well, I’d rather have my suitcase back than a few paltry pounds in my pocket and the aggro of having to go shopping to try to replace what is, for the most part, irreplaceable. You see, I hate shopping. Yes, I am a woman who hates shopping. It takes me up to three hours just to buy a pair of knickers. Don’t believe me? Ask my mother, who thought I was kidnapped by sex traffickers at a Macy’s in South Florida when I vanished in the lingerie department.

All I can say is, that suitcase better bloody well get here and soon, or else there will be major hell to pay…

You see, it’s been two days since your plane took me to Newark (not New York) at 1:10 AM (not 10:40 PM), at which time I discovered you had not bothered to reroute my luggage as well as my flight.  I went to bed at 4:30 AM and slept fitfully and rose early, hoping you’d knock on my door to return my several hundred dollars worth of clothes, shoes, makeup, and hair-styling implements.  Your website said I’d receive the luggage within six hours of 4:00 PM.  I sat in my apartment all that day, waiting.  I sat in my apartment all through the night, waiting.  I bypassed my run in the park while I waited.   I could not pick up my roommate’s Effing Cat while I waited, so I left her to bite and claw at the hand of the girl taking care of her.

The next day, approximately 14 hours after you promised he would arrive, the first cretin you sent buzzed my door.  When I came down to collect my luggage, he discovered that he had neglected to bring it along!  After much sluggish poking about, the first cretin promised you would send another — brighter than he — before 5:00 PM, when I was supposed to leave to pick up my roommate’s Effing Cat.

I suppose I should be impressed that the first cretin you sent knew how to buzz doors, because the second cretin didn’t know how.  Perhaps the first cretin also forgot to pass along my apartment number.  Or perhaps the clear directions on the front of the door were too complicated for the second man’s cretin  brain.  Instead of buzzing, the second cretin called me repeatedly — on my phone, which was dead, because the charger was in the suitcase you seem to have problems getting to me.

So I waited.  In the interim, I ingested thousands of calories out of sheer boredom, again foregoing my body-and-soul-cleansing run in the hope you’d show up.  I started thinking too much out of boredom, and thus underwent yet another career crisis.  I paced alone in that empty apartment, wearing my last pair of clean underwear and pajamas, looking like hell and questioning my talent and calling and meaning in life — all because your first cretin could not count and your second could not buzz someone’s door.

I despaired.  I sent my mother an email with the words “SCREW THEM.”  (Yes, meaning you.) I went out and bought a new charger.  I took a subway to the Upper East Side to pick up Effing Cat.  I came back and went out to buy Effing Cat litter and food.  Effing Cat caught the note of despair and meditated ending it all with a jump out the window.  I called you up on the phone and was icy and frigid and nasty and cold.  (“Christian icy?” my mother asks.  No.  Heathen icy in fact.)

And so the second cretin returned hours later, and I signed for my luggage exactly 48 hours after it should have arrived.  Thanks for your “safe, dependable and friendly air transportation.”  I can see that my “safety, comfort and convenience” and emotional health and Urban Outfitter outfits are your “most important concerns.” It’s nice to have underwear and hair implements once again.

Sincerely,

Stultiloquence