Cavalier

[bcholmes]

Yesterday, I had one of the worst check-ins I've ever had. It all originated with a claim on the AA website that if I travel to Pòtoprens, I could check two bags of up to 50 lbs, plus a third bag if I gave them $100. Which, hey, I was prepared to do. I had a big donation of children's clothes and other stuff that I was trying to bring down. Except that, at the airport, they informed me that that allowance was under a summer embargo. "If you read this other paragraph over here, you'd see that you were limited to just two bags from June 5th to August." Great. That doesn't really help me now that I'm sitting here at the airport with three bags. As I said, I was prepared to pay a fee to get the damn bag on the plane. But no.

After I found a place that'd take the bag for storage, I returned to the check-in counter only to be informed that I was now after the "cut off" time for check-in. I gave them a bit of an eyeroll, and they agreed to check me in, but encouraged me to hurry to make my 8:50 flight. It was about 8:00.

At the Toronto Airport, when you're flying into the States, you end up going through U.S. customs in Toronto. And on this particular day, there was about a one-hour long line-up at the customs centre. I waited patiently for a while, then approached a staff person saying that I had an 8:50 flight. They didn't much care, claiming that several people were in the same boat.

So at 8:37, I started politely asking the person in front of me what their flight time was, and whether or not I could go in front of them. People were accommodating, but several people warned me that I had less than fifteen minutes to get to my flight.

I cleared customs quickly, dropped off my checked baggage on the checked baggage conveyor belt, and went through the security checkpoint. The general slowness in customs meant that there wasn't really a line-up at security, and even though they decided to swab all my luggage and give me a special security feel-up, I was at my gate with five minutes to spare.

Except that the flight was delayed. My 8:50 flight was now a 10:30 flight. I didn't get the full story, but they were doing a complete inspection of the plane for some reason. After a while, the 10:30 flight became an 11:00 flight (with a touch-down of just after 2:00; my connection was 2:35). I checked with the counter; they assured me that the respective gates were relatively close together. They even said that there wouldn't be any more delays.

At 11:00 they started boarding. Once in the air, they announced that the project landing time was going to be 2:35. Coincidentally, the same time that my connecting flight would be pushing back from the gate.

When a convenient moment presented itself, I asked the steward when we'd have news about connecting flights. She asked where I was going. Pòtoprens at 2:35. "Oh, you're not going to make it," she said casually. I must confess that I'm underwhelmed by the sort of blasé way that airline workers can say, "We've completely screwed up your travel arrangements. Oh, well." I also know the flight schedules to Pòtoprens well enough to know that that'd be the last flight to Haiti for the day.

I was off the plane and speaking to an agent at 2:42. What's the status of AA 803 to Pòtoprens? "Oh, that plane left," she said, pleasantly. We've completely screwed up your travel arrangements. Oh, well.

So I was off to the re-booking desk. I watched the agent frowning at the computer as she was looking up alternate flights. "You're going to tell me that there aren't any more flights today," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"There's a flight tomorrow morning around 6:45, I think," I continued.

"It's at 7:05," she continued. Never, "Sorry about that." I can't say that I'm thrilled, but I know that there are no options, and no amount of righteous fury is going to change that.

"Do you have a preference for hotel?" I take whatever's closest. I have a hotel voucher, and $25 worth of vouchers for meals. MIA airport is badly laid out, and signage is, in my opinion, substandard. It takes forever to get a hotel shuttle, and the damn hotel is freezing. Other than the over-the-top air-conditioning, the accommodations are far swankier than what would have awaited me at the guest house in a destroyed city. But obviously it's a let down.