First Flight Since March 7

This weekend my wife and I braved air travel and headed to Ohio to visit our son and his family. It is the first flight I have been on since March 7. I have to say that I felt reluctant to get on the plane due to COVID-19. After taking the journey, the flight was probably the safest part of the trip.

Normally I would have had someone drop us off at the airport but our daughter had to go to work. We could have parked at the airport but instead opted to take the train to the airport. It meant a 1-mile walk to the train station but I don't mind the exercise and so we did that. In hindsight, we should have parked at the airport. We had to change trains and have a 29-minute wait for a different train line in downtown Salt Lake. Neither my wife nor I minded the wait for our next train. What we did mind was the lack of thought for others on the train. I am not a fan of masks but they are required on the train. Not everyone felt obligated to wear one and about half of the passengers didn't bother. Unfortunately the people that didn't wear masks are part of the demographic in Salt Lake at most risk for COVID-19. I couldn't wait to get to the airport and off that train. Once there, I made sure to use a liberal quantity of hand sanitizer. I hope it works.

The security line at the airport moved very quickly and we found ourselves at the Southwest Airline gates. We had an early boarding number and found a row 4 seats back. I put my wife at the window and I took the isle. Southwest is not loading the planes to capacity so they can ensure all middle seats on the flight are empty. I appreciate that. Furthermore you are required to wear a mask on the flight. If you have some medical condition that prevents you from wearing a mask, they won't let you on the plane. The only exception is young children under the age of 2.

The flight went well to Chicago. The 2 and a half hour flight is the longest I have worn a mask since COVID-19 started. I hated it but am not complaining because I want everyone around me to be wearing a mask. We landed in Chicago and had to continue wearing masks until we got a pizza at one of few open restaurants in the airport. Once we finished the meal, the masks went back on. I have to admit that the airport really felt like a scene out of a zombie apocalypse movie.

The flight from Chicago to Cleveland lasted only 45 minutes and went quickly. My son picked us up at the airport and we had a relatively short drive to his home. Once there I could reflect on my flight experience. I feel a lot more comfortable about flying but it is not something I want to do frequently. In other words, I won't be doing it for work any time soon. I don't think I will be using the train any time soon though and would discourage anyone from doing so until COVID-19 has been resolved.

Airport Delays

I am at the airport waiting to catch my last flight of the year and it is turning into a little adventure. One would think that the San Francisco airport would be able to handle a little bit of rain. Nope there is a comedy of errors that are working against it and I find myself in the middle. Normally I would have a fellow travel buddy to share the grief but this evening is a day earlier than my regular weekly flight and so I will have to share my adventure with you.

For those that don't know, Tuesday is generally the best day of the week to purchase airplane tickets. I have a regular routine where I go through my existing flights and make sure I have the best prices on existing flights and then book any additional flights so that I have travel booked 3 months out. Yesterday was that day and I had to book a number of flights on Southwest due to schedule conflicts. Then I got into the office this morning with an e-mail from Southwest letting me know that one of the flights I booked in March is now cancelled. They rebooked me on a much later flight that doesn't get me home until after 1am. What they didn't tell me is that the original flight I booked was twice as expensive as this new flight nor did they offer me a refund of the difference. No offense Southwest, but that is a bit underhanded. I cancelled the rebooked flight and got my money back. I will look at other options on other airlines as getting in after 1am is not an option.

With that as a background story, let me now move onto today's flights. After getting my Southwest flight cancelled, I got another e-mail. This time from Alaska Airlines letting me know I had been upgraded to First Class. I thought that strange as I am not scheduled to fly again for the next  several weeks. When I looked closely, the upgraded flight is for today and scheduled to leave out of San Jose instead of San Francisco. Then I got another e-mail from Alaska explaining that today's flight would now be leaving out of San Jose and I had to arrive at the San Francisco airport 2 hours early. If I did that, they would make arrangements for me to get to San Jose. There was only one problem, I had a meeting that I needed to be in and couldn't be at the San Francisco airport 2 hours early.

I had arranged a ride to the airport and managed to move my ride to 45 minutes earlier. This enabled me to be at the airport at the appropriate time for the airline to get me to San Jose. Next I headed to my meeting and explained to my visitors from Japan that I would need to cut the meeting in half so I could accommodate a change in departure airports. It worked out and we finished just as my ride showed up to bring me to the San Francisco airport.

I arrived at the airport with 15 minutes to spare and walked up to the ticket counter. The agent politely helped me check in and started to arrange an Uber ride to San Jose. Then a supervisor came up and explained that traffic would prohibit me from making my flight. "Oh crap," was the only thing I could think of as I knew I would get home but knew when would be measured by a calendar instead of a clock. The last time this happened, I got routed on a late flight to Seattle where I slept in the airport before catching a 5:30am flight to Salt Lake. Fortunately a different supervisor intervened and they put me on a Delta flight leaving out of San Francisco an hour earlier than my original flight. The only downside is that I would have to give up my First-Class seat. In my mind I am just happy to be getting home an hour earlier than I originally thought.

I ran next door to the Delta counter and got a seat assignment. I headed through security and made it to my new gate just as the plane was supposed to start boarding. Then I saw that the Delta flight was delayed to a 5:57 departure. That is about the same time as my original flight. I had no luck on the seat assignment but I did have a window seat somewhere in the middle of the plane.

So now I find myself hanging out in the San Francisco airport waiting for a delayed Delta flight to Salt Lake City. I'm sure my departure will get moved out at least once before I board but I am happy to be going home this evening. Let's hope it actually is this evening.

A Man with One Clock

I am at the San Francisco airport waiting to catch my flight back to Salt Lake and thought my flight might actually leave on time. Why? I checked the monitor and it said my flight is on time. Then I logged into my e-mail and it told me my flight is delayed by 2 hours! I have a computer and am too lazy to go back and check the flight monitor again and so I logged onto the airline website and asked for a flight status. It says my flight is only 45 minutes delayed. So what is the correct answer? This reminds me of an old saying: "A man with one clock knows what time it is, a man with two isn't quite sure." In my case, I have 3 and none of them agree.

One of the problems with keeping travelers up-to-date with the latest information is that it is often wrong. An airline may see a delay about to happen and so they notify passengers. Then a pilot will work a miracle and arrive sooner than expected. The seemingly 2-hour delay gets shortened to 45 minutes.

A quick check of my e-mail between paragraphs and I have received a message indicating that my flight is now only 45-minutes delayed. I have 2 sources of information that agree. It will probably change again before I actually board the flight and so I don't put much stock into my departure time until it actually happens. Fortunately I have a really good book to read and don't mind hanging out at the airport too much. I would like to get in at a reasonable hour but a delay is not heartbreaking.

Using a Smartphone for Calls

Saturday afternoon I boarded my flight from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles and patiently took my seat. About 10 minutes before our scheduled departure the pilot came on and informed us there was a slight problem with the plane's computer and that he was going to try to reboot it. For some reason, I pictured him typing CTL-ALT-DEL. Twenty minutes and a few announcements later, we were informed that the computer was not responding and that it needed to be replaced. The process would take 45 minutes. My layover in Los Angeles was only 45 minutes to begin with and we were already 10 minutes into that. I was going to miss my flight to Tokyo.

Missing my flight was not an option. I was scheduled to arrive at 10:30pm Sunday evening and I was hosting a conference at 8:30 am the following morning. Any delay would seriously jeopardize my attendance at my own event. An event that I had spent the previous 6 months planning. I immediately got on the phone with Delta using a special number given to their platinum-level customers. My mobile number identified me and there was no need to enter my frequent flyer number. I thought that was a nifty feature. Soon I was connected with a real person who immediately knew why I was calling. He told me to get off the plane and run to another flight headed to San Francisco. While I ran, he rebooked me on a different itinerary using another carrier for the leg from San Francisco to Tokyo.

I ended up sprinting through the Salt Lake airport and immediately boarded my new flight. Then I landed and sprinted through the San Francisco airport to the international terminal. I got a new boarding pass with my seat assignment and had the luxury of experiencing TSA security for the second time that day. Yes, that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm. For those that don't know me, I hate going through airport security as I do it twice a week, whether I want to or not. I sprinted to the gate and boarded the flight to Tokyo. Yes, I was stuck in a middle seat for the 10-hour flight but I was going to make my conference. In fact, I landed only a few minutes later than my originally scheduled flight.

Yes, Delta has a smartphone app that I could have used to help with my travel. However it wouldn't have booked me on a different carrier. Unfortunately my unique situation required human intervention. At those times, it is nice that a smartphone can also be used as a phone. After all, that is why I carry it.

Internet Data and Telephones

We have a school holiday in Utah during the month of October for the Utah Education Association or UEA. It is a 2-day conference where teachers go and learn how to be better educators. The rest of us refer to it as Utah's Exodus to Anaheim as it is a great time to take the family to Disneyland. I know that Disneyland can be crowded and so I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Instead I took my wife and son someplace else. Unfortunately I still found myself yesterday morning at the Los Angeles International Airport trying to catch a flight back to Salt Lake. Chaos is the only word that can describe the situation.

Our previous flight had a mechanical issue and so we were late getting to Los Angeles. We landed with 20 minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. While we all managed to get to the new gate with 10 minutes to spare, the airline saw fit to give our seats away. We were told it was an oversold flight. There was one remaining available seat and so I sent my wife home assuming my son and I would be able to catch a flight later in the day. Unfortunately there were no available flights to Salt Lake and the best any airline could do was put me on a plane the next morning. That was unacceptable as I had to catch a 6:45 am flight this morning out of Salt Lake.

I was glad to have my iPhone with the Southwest app as I could verify that they didn't have any flights. You see, I was on another carrier and the rest of the airline industry doesn't get along with Southwest and so they don't share flight information. Being able to look that up on my own helped me realize what a dire predicament I was in. It also illustrates that just because you have Internet accessible data, doesn't mean your problems will be solved. In my case it only illustrated how really screwed I was.

With no flights available it was time to go to plan B: Hertz rental car. Salt Lake is only a 9-hour drive from Los Angeles. A single phone call later to 1-800-CAR-GOLD and I had a reservation for an economy car. I then spent the rest of the day having quality time with my son while we made the drive. I arrived at home just after 9pm. When I asked my son where he wanted to go next year for UEA, he replied, "Let's just stay home."