Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Surviving... But Just Barely

Originally:
Sydney to LA - Bulkhead seat on the aisle.
Row 10 United Economy Plus - Almost perfect.
(Perfect? Perfect would include Kate Beckinsale seated in seat 10B.)

(But I digress...)

LA to Houston - Bulkhead aisle- with an excellent chance of getting an upgrade...
Houston - Jax - Seat A1 - (On this plane (CRJ) that's about the best I can get... At least in A1 no one tries to recline and break my kneecaps.)

In Kingsford Airport however, the Fates had other plans for me.
United rep: "Good news Large Angry Guy, we have protected you on a flight from Sydney to San Francisco, and got you on standby to O'Hare and Jacksonville."

'Protected' my aching dying ass.

Reality -
Sydney to SFO - and OMFG, who didn't see this coming - Only middle seats available.
In economy class. Not even in Economy Plus... in row 57. Which means, in case you haven't had the joy of sitting in steerage on a 747, the noise level is horrendous and there is quite a bit of movement.
Seriously- if there is turbulence, look toward the front of the plane- you would be amazed how much 'flex' there is...

SFO to ORD- Economy plus, 'window' seat with no window. Which means no shoulder room... and a 40 minute transition time from landing to connecting flight take off.
I didn't do an 'OJ' on my way from C Concourse to the F Gates, but I didn't slow down for stupid people that were shuffling along like they were on vacation either. There might have been an impact or two... I didn't hang around to find out.

And the ORD to JAX, another @#$%^&ing CRJ, seat 4C, with a guy in front of me who insisted his seat wasn't back far enough yet and kept slamming back against my knees.
By this time I was too tired and sore to do anything other than try to shift my knees out of the way. I just spent most of the 3+ hours composing hate mail.

Original itinerary: 18 flight hours, 26 total travel hours.
New trip:  24 flight hours, 34 total travel hours.

United sucks out loud...
Some time in the next 36 hours I'll be transcribing my United-hate into a nasty letter to Jeff Smisek.

Because United breaks more than just my knees and my will to live...
United breaks guitars.

(and the sequels here and here...)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Good luck getting to Smisek, a few of us have tried... Trust me!

kx59 said...

interesting. I thought I detected a shift in the gravitational field yesterday.
I should have known you passed by this way.
Looks like you got out from down under just in time.
I saw where it hit 107 in Sydney yesterday.