December 31, 2007
View from Florida, 2007 (Part I)
(c) copyright View from Silicon Valley, 2007. All rights
reserved.
We have very low expectations for the logistics of our
annual cross-country trip for the holidays.
Two years ago, Delta Airlines rescheduled our ~8:30am departure
to 7:00am. This was annoying but within the letter of FAA regulations. By the time of this reschedule, it was getting
pretty close to the holidays to start over booking flights to Florida, so we let is slide. We got up extra early
and spent the "extra" time strolling Atlanta Hartsfield's corridors.
We rose for the return trip ~4:20am to drive to the Orlando airport.
Upon arrival, the security line was 150 yards. Once security started showing up for for work about 6:00am the line started
moving but we burned up all our "spare" time just getting to the gate. In the end, we rushed down the concourse
and they closed the aircraft door moments after we set foot on the plane.
Out of breath and short on sleep, we dozed off
not fully realizing Delta kept us sitting on the tarmac for over an hour. There was a different flight we could
have taken but they wouldn't go back to the terminal. Adding insult to inconvenience, we then had to sit through
the ensuing back-up of departures before finally becoming airborne. Naturally, we missed our Atlanta connection
to San Jose.
Rather than apologize, or even point out options, Delta sent us
off to a phone bank to wait in line behind 30 -40 others with similar "issues" to call central reservations and fend
for ourselves. We spoke to a couple groups of folks who were planning to spend the night in Atlanta and hope
to catch a connection the next day.
Being waaaay to stubborn to easily accept that outcome,
we hammered the phone bank, cell phones and my Delta Frequent Flier numbers for nearly two hours, eventually yielding
a standby reservation on a mid-afternoon San Francisco flight and confirmed seats on an evening flight. I
guess so many others were stranded with the predicament that the mid-afternoon San Francisco flight let
on all the standbys and still left with at least a dozen empty seats. Upon arrival at SFO, we had to navigate
BART, Cal-Train and then a taxi to get back home about 10:30pm PST. For those keeping score, that's a 21-hour day.
We might have eventually received reimbursement from Delta for
the additional transportation and meal expenses but decided life was too short to fight so long for the $60 or so spent
cash with no, or incomplete, receipts. (See upcoming American Express missive for a rant on a similar topic.)
Our bags arrived overnight and were sitting on our porch when we got up in the morning.
Based on that 2005 experience with Delta, we switched to United
in 2006. Going out through Denver and back through Chicago was surely safer than stepping foot in the nightmare that
can be Atlanta /Hartsfield, right?
United changed our moderately-convenient 8:30am departure
to 7:00am. This was annoying but again within FAA regs. Upon our ~5:30am arrival at San Jose, we were informed our
rescheduled flight was now canceled! No explanation was provided and we were sent over to work the United ticket
counter to book a fresh connection to Orlando. Two stressful hours later we were in line for a flight to Chicago,
hoping to negotiate with "somebody" so that our nine-year-old could sit with at least one of her parents. (Our three
seats reserved together were, of course, long gone.)
We partially solved the seat problem and arrived in Chicago for a
four-hour layover. We finally boarded a flight and arrived about 9:00pm EST, instead of our expected 3:00pm. This
was "only" a 14-hour day but was still a much longer and more stressful trip than expected.
As an aside, it didn't apply on the day of our flights, but a
lot of people had much worse experiences with Denver last year than we did. Local news coverage in Florida showed
several days of folks camping out in the Denver airport due to snowstorms.
Even though we missed that excitement, when it came time to book
2007 flights, we opted for connections in places were it (mostly) didn't snow. American Airlines through Dallas seemed
smarter than Denver, Chicago or Atlanta. (The 1993 Dallas -Miami Thanksgiving football game in the snow notwithstanding,
of course.)
The San Jose airport was only moderately crowded and the Dallas
airport was similarly light. (In fairness, it was Christmas Eve.) The planes, of course, were packed to the rafters
and the flight crew was none too happy having to work Christmas Eve. Packed flights and poor service are of course,
totally routine these days on domestic coach service.
We did get one surprise when our three seats together
were split up on the Dallas-to-Orlando flight. We produced both the original reservation and the boarding
pass printed the day before, showing the seats confirmed together to the gate agent in Dallas. His replies were:
1) The airline changed the aircraft and therefore American had
to change everybody's seats.
+Fortunately, we had our original reservation showing the
current aircraft was exactly the same as when we reserved the seats.
2) We have lots of families traveling this time of year which
makes seating more complex.
+So what are we, chopped liver?
We eventually got back to three seats together. Judging
by the 19 standbys waiting to get on this flight, the real truth is probably they changed the aircraft to a six-seats-per-row
model, thinking they would have more passengers but then changed it back to a five-seats-per-row version when the extra
traffic failed to materialize.
This relatively-low level of aggravation had us smugly happy
and confident when we arrived in Orlando. Only to discover:
1) American lost one of our bags.
+Miraculously,
the lost bag was an empty one we were dead-heading back to grandparents. It's now three days later and
we're actually hoping the bag stays lost so that we can give the $50 (or whatever) reimbursement to the grandparent
owners.
2) We reserve a mid-size SUV every year on this trip.
It's our annual test to see if we could drive one on a regular basis. It turns out the rental
car agency gave us only a Chrysler PT Cruiser (OK, it was a convertible) while still charging us the full SUV rental
rate in our confirmed reservation. We discovered the mistake only after getting back to baggage
claim to stand in line to file a claim for our missing bag. We skipped the line and hustled back to the rental car agency.
+This bait-and-switch smelled like a classic Florida tourist scam.
When I finally got back through the line and to to their desk, the desk agent, accompanied by his henchman chiming in, claimed
they had no SUVs available. Unfortunately for them, they forgot to warn their junior henchman working the front
end of the customer line about this scam. Before I got back in line, he assured me the PT Cruiser "mistake" was
easy to fix since they had "plenty of SUVs."
By the time I called over the junior henchman to remind them they
had "plenty of SUVs," they all had their story straight as the junior henchman somewhat-sarcastically explained "SUV" obviously meant
"pick-up truck." Our confirmed reservation number sadly could not help us since they just didn't have any
SUVs.
I momentarily lost control of my vocabulary. Remembering the
goal of setting a good example for our child I managed to choke down the second and third of several comments which leapt
to mind. Changing tactics, I decided to raise my voice, and direct it to the other customers
in line, about how this was a scam! Followed by, "What kind of crooked operation are you running here?" and
"Where do I go to file a complaint?"
I was once again smugly happy, but also relieved, when they gave
up playing their game. With a pained look of heavy exertion on his face, the desk clerk made his third cell phone
call. This time they "found" an SUV and sent us on our way. Walking our luggage out through the
airport parking garage, we discovered this agency really had several SUVs. We counted seven!
Conclusion:
For future reference, be very, very careful using L&M Car
Rental in Orlando. For all traveling we do, we prefer to, "Go not gently into that goodnight."
Likewise, it might be useful to schedule winter-holiday flights
through places not named Atlanta and also where it doesn't snow.
Coming up: View from Florida, Vol.2, Oviedo real estate.
