Up, Up and Away! (Eventually)

For what ever reason, I feel compelled to tell you of my journey to Las Vegas, NV for a job interview. No, I will not bore you with the details of the interview, but rather of the details of my flight.

This was my first flight since 9/11. It’s not that I was scared to fly, but I had no where to go. So this ends up being my first experience with the new and improved screeners. The TSA.

I arrived at St. Louis International Airport the requested two hours prior to my flight. Check in was easy. I had an e-ticket so I was able to use the unmanned kiosk. I then got in line to be screened. The line had about 70 people in it in front of me. TSA had two checkpoints opened.

After about thirty minutes I was able to breeze through security. Amazingly enough once I got through they opened up a third check point. Typical.

So after wasting all that time with TSA I arrived at my gate. It was about 45 minutes prior to boarding and they were still boarding a different flight. No big deal I thought. It became a big deal when that plane was still sitting at the gate when it was time to board. Finally that plane pushed away. The gate attendant told us nothing as we waited for our DC-10 to pull up. It never did. At 3:30, when our flight was supposed to depart we were STILL waiting for a plane. Finally, at about 3:50, the gate lady hopped on the intercom and told us that our flight was cancelled.

So the sixty of us walked down to the American Airlines booth – staffed by only one person – and waited to get a new flight. A second lady eventually showed up and I was booked on a flight that left at 5:00PM.

Once I got on that plane – it left about a half hour late – we arrived at the layover destination of Dallas-Fort Worth. I trekked down the terminal to find that my flight from DFW to Las Vegas was delayed two hours.

To summarize my flight there, after being scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas at 6:50, I arrived at 11:50.

Then there was my flight back. I was running late, having spent the majority of the day with my interviewers. I got there about 43 minutes before the flights scheduled departure time. The little kiosk told me that since I was two minutes late, I would have to check in with a real lady. Again, I was subjected to a line of about 40 people and two AA ladies. Oddly enough the first class line had ten people and six checkers. Go figure.

I finally made my way up to her, getting a little nervous. It was 25 minutes till my flight left and my gate was at the farthest point of the terminal. I checked in with her and she decided to put me on stand-by for a different flight; just in case.

I ran to the security checkpoint to find another large line. However they had five checkpoints open and the line was moving quickly. I arrived at the pre-screener and showed him my boarding pass. He looked at it and ushered me into a sixth line. I thought that he had seen how close I was to my flight and was putting me into a priority line.

Nope. American Airlines had flagged me for extra security. So I removed my shoes and my belt. I walked through the metal detector and it beeped. Apparently my cigarettes were enough to set off the metal detectors. So I got wanded, and patted down. My laptop and shoes got swabbed and tested for explosives. My bags got pawed through.

However, in the TSA’s defense – they were very polite and when I told the lady searching my bags of my flight plight, she hurried and got me on my way quickly. Which was good because the one flight I needed to be delayed, was on time. I hopped on board the 757 with a couple of minutes to spare, gasping and sweating as this fat guy doesn’t do running very well.

All in all it was interesting. From my ordeals with the flights to my extended time with security. That said, I hope you will all learn a lesson from this. Show up those two hours early. It’s a very good suggestion.