My step-mother recently passed away. While the term “step-mother” often conjures up images of an abusive pseudo-parent: this was not the case with Doris. She was always kind and loving to my siblings and me, never tried to replace our birth-mother and was a devoted wife to my father for over 30 years. I felt it was important that I get to her funeral to pay my respects to her and to support my dad. Achieving that goal proved to be somewhat daunting.
My initial reaction was, as normal, to drive the 1,000 miles separating me from her home of Sprague Nebraska. But a number of factors conspired to make that option impractical. Some of these might have been mitigated through car-pooling with a brother who lives in the same general part of the nation as I, but that too was quashed by circumstances.
Marie and I decided the best option was for me to fly to Nebraska and back and we began researching airfare and schedules. In the end we decided on United Express, a division of United Airlines, and a flight plan that took me from the Knoxville Tennessee airport to O’Hare airport in Chicago then on to the Lincoln Nebraska airport with only a 1½ hour lay-over in Chicago. This would get me to Lincoln by 9:45 AM and I didn’t need to be back on board for the return flight until 6:15 PM, giving me most of the day to visit with relatives and attend the funeral service. The cost was doable and it seemed a reasonable solution.
I’ll start by saying that the last time I recall flying on a commercial airline, the aircraft had propellers. A lot has changed since then. At no time in planning or execution of our plan was I afraid of flying as much as wary of the horror stories I hear from friends and relatives who fly regularly: abuses by TSA agents, lost luggage, missed connections, smug customer service representatives, and generalized ineptness pepper these accounts. I do realize of course that human beings do tend to share their negative experiences far more than their positive experiences. This is a basic tenant to anyone who has studied marketing and the lengths that companies must go to in order to protect their reputation from this tendency.
So I started by seeking out information concerning TSA regulations and United’s baggage restrictions. Armed with these I put together a travel kit and clothing that eschewed metal, complied with all the guidelines, and provided me with what I was likely to need in case of problems – including plenty of snacks.
The adventure got underway around 3:30 AM Friday as Marie and I secured our herd of dogs and hit the road for the 1¼ to 1½ hour drive from our home to McGee-Tyson Airport in Knoxville. The weather was good and we made excellent time. We elected to park in the garage so Marie could come in with me in case the TSA rejected anything I was carrying: she could bring it home rather than my having to trash it.
A few of the precautions I took were:
- I wore pants that would stay up without a belt and stowed the belt in my bag rather than wearing it. I’d want it for the funeral, but the buckle was metal.
- Any cellphone, camcorder, laptop, tablet or netbook must be charged and able to power up to prove it is not a dummy filled with explosives.
- Some airports require you to take your shoes off and send them through the X-ray machine. Wearing shoes that slip off easily saves frustration.
- The X-Ray machine does NOT wipe your memory cards in cellphones or cameras – the metal detector can. Put them in your carry-on bag or the plastic bin they provide and send them through the x-ray machine, don’t carry them in your pockets.
- Aerosol or liquid personal care items need to be sealed into plastic bags.
- Prescription medications need to be in their original containers with your name on the prescription label. Do not mix pills into a single container for your convenience. Aerosols (like an inhaler) need to be in a clear bag and declared before x-raying (the medication cylinders look a lot like CO2 cartridges used in pellet guns on an x-ray).
As a result I had no trouble at all with the TSA inspections at the Knoxville airport or the Lincoln airport and I stayed within the boarding area at O’Hare to avoid their TSA agents altogether.
The plane I was flying on for this adventure was the Brazilian-made Embraer 145: a turbofan engine commuter jet that holds up to 72 passengers and has a crew of 3. It cruises at 515 miles per hour and we generally flew at 33,000 to 35,000 feet.
In the early days of air travel, most airlines touted their services as a comfortable, almost luxurious, way to travel. While that aspect probably still exists for longer flights in bigger planes, these planes are not that. With an exterior fuselage diameter of just 7½ feet, these planes are tight. The seats are small, the accommodations minimal, and luggage is restricted. Anything too big to fit in the small overhead bins or under a seat must be tagged and stowed in the compartment between the engines. I carried only a small sling bag and had no trouble stuffing it under the seat where I could get at it easily during the flight. I am also small enough that the diminutive seats were not uncomfortable.
I found that the noise of the engines and the air rushing past the cabin are loud enough that listening to an audio book on my kindle was out of the question, even with ear buds. Others watched movies on their laptops (with ear buds) so they were able to crank up the volume loud enough to hear. My Kindle does not. But I was able to read on my Kindle, so I was not without entertainment when I was not being fascinated by the view out the window. And it was fascinating!
All of these planes made some strange noises. One that was common to all was a loud BANG and a dramatic increase in wind noise and buffeting as they lowered the landing gear. The first time, this was a bit worrisome because it sounded like something had broken off and felt like we were in trouble. But my fellow passengers continued to toy with their smartphones (in airplane mode) and were not the least bit bothered by it, so I assumed it was normal. By the fourth flight I too was used to it and barely noticed.
One plane made a sound while we were taxiing and taking off that was like a seat belt buckle that falls out your car door and is dragged along as you drive. Again no one was concerned. On another, as we rotated for takeoff, there was a skittering noise like something sliding along between layers of the fuselage, or perhaps like ice sliding along the exterior. One passenger said, “Hey, I’ve got water coming in over here.” To which another replied, “Yeah, these planes do that sometimes.”
Oh, really!?
The out-bound flights went well: my layover went as predicted and I arrived at Lincoln on time. My sister and nephew arrived within minutes of my exiting the airport to pick me up for that last 20 minute leg of the trip. The outbound trip could not have gone any better.
Our visit and the funeral went well also.
Laurie and Charlie got me back to the Lincoln airport in time to slide through the TSA inspection and check in at my departure gate. Unfortunately, this is where things started to trip up. My flight was on hold due to rough weather at O’Hare.
While waiting, I noticed a group of about a dozen people who seemed to be family. They ranged in age from pre-teen to late middle age and were obviously veteran fliers. This delay meant that they were going to miss a connection at O’Hare that would take them to Paris and then on to the Ukraine. I asked one fellow why in the world they wanted to fly to the Ukraine just now, and he responded with, “Oh, we’re going to the other side of the country, far from the fighting. We’ll be fine.” I wished them well and thought they were nuts anyway.
Their leader was working with the boarding agent to arrange alternate flight plans. After a lengthy discussion he returned to the group and announced, “OK, we’re routed through Antarctica to Belgium, then on to the Ukraine.” He was joking. It turns out that his flight out of O’Hare was delayed as well and they would catch that one at least. He had made alternate connections for them once they got to Europe. All was well.
This was reassuring to me as well since my layover at O’Hare on the return trip was only supposed to be from 8:20 to 8:35 and I was concerned about when the next flight back home would be. But if all flights in and out were being delayed, I might still make that connection, I’d just get home later than expected.
I arrived at O’Hare to find that my flight home had indeed been delayed from 8:35 to 11:00. My problem now was that I had no seat assignment. They had oversold the flight and I may get bumped because I had not claimed a seat fast enough. I went to the United Airlines customer service counter to see what could be done.
I found that I was not alone in the having-a-problem-to-be-resolved situation: far from it. There was a long line of people seeking resolutions of their problems. Some were pretty irate. A few were down-right nasty. The scuttlebutt being tossed about for the hour and a half I stood in line revolved around how frustrating and insensitive “these people” were and how much these passengers hated O’Hare airport.
From what I could tell about what was going on at the counter, one of the three agents was getting snarky with the fellow he was trying to assist, but the customer was being irrational and abusive.
A lanky gal in tight jeans and a tank top was playing with her hair and flirting with her agent as she tried to secure passage back to The Netherlands. He seemed to be enjoying the attention and I wondered if he wasn’t working a little slower than necessary to prolong their discussions.
Apparently on top of a weather delay there had been an entire flight crew who called in sick at the last moment and left a plane with no crew. That created additional havoc as they tried to scrounge up a crew for that flight. More delays, more angry people.
When it was my turn I explained that the flight I needed to be on was still here, so I could catch it but I lacked a seat assignment. He stated that the flight appeared to be full and the next flight to Knoxville will be 9:00 the next morning. He could get me on that. I asked, “You’re sure that flight is still full? Someone may have made other plans because of these delays.” He went back to his screen. He screwed up his face and looked more intently, then looked back at me, “It looks like you departed Knoxville at 5:45 this morning, flew here, flew on to Lincoln, flew back here and now want to go on to Knoxville all in ONE DAY. Can that be right?”
“Yes, that’s right. I flew out to Lincoln to attend my step-moms funeral. That was my only purpose in traveling and this was the only schedule that gave me the window I needed in Lincoln.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, and for the troubles in getting back home. Let me see what I can do.”
And he went back to his screen for a minute or two more. Made a phone call, went back to his screen. Then he asked, “Do you mind sitting in the emergency door seat?”
There is one row of seats at the position of the two emergency exits. Anyone who sits in this row must be 15 years or older, physically capable of operating the door release mechanism, and must be willing to do so in case of an emergency landing. It is also incumbent upon those passengers to assist other passengers out the doorway once they’ve exited to stand on the wing. This is all discussed during the pre-flight safety speech, and by now I was familiar with the stipulation.
“No, I don’t mind at all.” I was willing to sit in the lavatory if that’s what it took to get home!
So he printed me a boarding pass with 18A as my seat assignment. YES! I’m going home. I thanked him, he again expressed his condolences and I went to the gate to await boarding. But there was another problem.
The boarding agent was patiently explaining to people that we have no crew for this flight: they seem to have been misplaced. The airline was flying in a crew from Nashville but that plane was not due to arrive for a while, and they’d need time to perform their safety checks before anyone could board the plane.
He could not tell me if this was the flight where the entire flight crew called in sick. He said that would be a very rare occurrence and would probably result in disciplinary action against the crew. “What does happen is that these express flight crews will sign up for several flights per day going from point A to point B, to Point C to point D then back to Point A. If the airline they work for doesn’t have enough flights to fill their day, they may sub-contract with another line for a flight. Any time they go out of network, United loses track of them. If a delay occurs on that airline, it can impact United’s schedule in unpredictable ways.” He suspected that is what happened here.
That’s what he said; really.
Eventually a pair of grumpy looking pilots showed up and was let into the boarding passage. A few minutes later, one of the pilots came back out and walked down to the United Airlines service counter. The gal sitting next to me quipped, “He must have forgotten the keys.” I chuckled.
When he returned he was carrying a thick sheaf of papers.
I retorted, “Instruction manual – he’s not flown one of these before.” She chuckled.
Our boarding agent disappeared through the door to the boarding tunnel.
A while later a fellow in a business suit walked up, looked at all the people sitting around, then said to a cute little blonde at the gate counter (who turned out to be Brittany our cabin attendant) “Why isn’t this plane boarding yet? Where is the agent for this post?”
Brittany said, “He went down the tunnel.”
So the mucky-muck slid his card through the reader and punched in the code to open the boarding tunnel door and called down the tunnel. The agent came trotting up. The mucky-muck said, “Board this plane, now.”
Normally boarding announcements follow a certain pattern. They say that anyone with disabilities, or small children, and uniformed military personnel may board with boarding group 2. Group 1 is always the Preferred Club members. They call for each group to line up, they scan the boarding passes into the computer and hand out green tags for any carry-on luggage deemed too large to carry onto this plane. Those are left at the end of the boarding tunnel and the ground crew places them into the airplane’s trunk.
Once each group has been processed, they call for the next group to form a line.
The boarding agent called for group 1 to form a line. No one moved. He raised his eyebrows.
“Boarding groups 2, 3 4 and 5, please form a line.”
Someone called out “Y’all come!”
And he responded, “That’s right, let’s get you folks on board!”
And he did.
After we got settled, and the pilots cranked up the plane’s engines, and the ground crew disconnected the ground power cords, and before the flight attendant gave her safety speech, the captain introduced himself and said, “We’re sorry you have been kept waiting, it’s been a long day for us too, so we’re going to do everything we can to get you to Knoxville as fast as possible.” He sounded tired; or maybe dejected. It wasn’t their usual cheerful ‘Welcome aboard, we’re happy to be your crew for this flight’ kind of talk.
The safety speech was given and the pusher truck shoved the plane out into the taxi-way. And we sat there. After several minutes of doing nothing, the captain came back on, and with a sigh said, “Well… our GPS system just went out. I’m sure those satellites are still up there, so we need to reboot the system, but we cannot move the plane until that process is completed. Please bear with us a few minutes longer.”
When that process completed they throttled up the engines and we scooted out to a runway. With almost no delay, they spooled up the engines to a roar and shot down the runway, lifted the nose and off we went.
It did seem they did not throttle back the engines like they normally do at cruising altitude, so we may have been whipping along faster than their normal cruising speed – and burning a lot more fuel. I was tired and teetered on the brink of sleep as we screamed along. When I felt them drop the nose I knew we were descending for the approach into Knoxville even before the captain told us so.
Knoxville had been experiencing a light rain all evening. Standing on the ground, a light rain is nothing exceptional. Driving along at 70 miles an hour, a light rain can become a nuisance and even a hazard. Whipping through a light rain at 400 MPH is exciting indeed! There was considerably more buffeting and bouncing than normal, but it was the view out the window that really impressed me. There was a typhoon out on the wing-tips!
The plane set down a little harder than normal, but it did set down safely, taxied to the gate and after allowing the ground crew to secure and plug-in the plane, we disembarked.
I pinged Marie on my cell phone: she was still a ways out – delayed by the rain and darkness. Despite the drizzle, it was pleasant outside under a covered drop-off/pick-up area outside the terminal. I sat and waited.
Several cabs cruised by slowly – hopefully. I just let them go. I would have waved at them, just to be friendly, but thought they might take that as a signal to stop. So I pretended to be city folk and just ignored them.
Marie arrived and I hopped in. I chattered at her all the way home, not so much because I thought she’d want to hear all that as to help keep her awake. She had not slept in the past 25 hours either.
We arrived safely at home around 4:30 AM Saturday. As soon as I walked into the house and greeted the dogs – who seemed genuinely happy that I had not been returned to the shelter – I felt an overpowering urge to fall into bed and go to sleep. As soon as was feasible, I gave in to that urge.
Looking Back on Flying
Despite some frustrations at O’Hare on the return flight, I think the trip went well. My strongest memories are the sight of the countryside sliding by during take-off and landing and the sight of the clouds below us at cruising altitude. Sometimes just below us. Turbulence was always worse when they got into clouds, so they tried to avoid that. But sometimes it was just barely: I felt I could touch them.
I feel the United Airlines staff and crews performed well, especially under duress at O’Hare. They seemed to be really trying to make suitable arrangements, including handing out comps for hotel rooms, taxi fare, and food to those who got stranded there waiting for a flight the next day.
Would I feel differently if I’d gotten stuck there? Maybe, but as long as I didn’t end up trying to sleep in a chair in the terminal for 9 hours, I think I’d have held my opinion. They don’t control the weather, and no one I interacted with (other than fellow passengers) was rude or insensitive to me.
This is not an adventure I’d want to repeat any time soon, but I enjoyed the experience of flying again, even if the reason for the flight was not so cheerful. I have some amazing memories (and a lot of video) to work through and a better understanding of modern air travel.
What about you? Do you have any airfare tales to tell? Please share in the comments below.
The Way it Once Was
