Tis the season to be merry and of good cheer. Yet this has to be the worst year on record thus far in my life, with the worst of my luck culminating two days ago on Dec. 19th, 2007 while traveling from Baltimore to Seattle via United Airlines.
The day starts at 4:00am when I get my girlfriend up and load her bags in the car. I drive her to the park and ride where we meet a lincoln that takes her Reagan Airport in DC. I get breakfast and at 6:30am my mom and I head to BWI Airport in Baltimore. I get to the airport 2 hours before my flight, get my ticket, go through security and wait at my gate. At 9:30am my plane boarded and everyone got on the plane. Once we were all seated the captain told us how long our flight would be and that the passengers on the previous flight noticed oil squirting out of the left side of the plane onto the runway. Original departure time up until this point was 10:04am. We sit on the plane until 10:24am when the captain comes back on the speaker and tells us that an oil cap is leaking oil and they are searching for a replacement. The flight attendants start the movie and we wait for a good hour when the captain informs us that the nearest replacement cap is at Dulles Airport in DC, and they are sending it via taxi to us at that time. The also offer us the chance to get off the plane, since we hadn't departed from the gate, but tell us not to wander far as we need to be back at the gate by 11:30, this was at 10:45.
So I grab a bag of trail mix from the little store and head back to the gate. I wait in line to talk to the united lady at the gate for a good while, chatting with other passengers about how awsome it is to have aircraft maintenance outsourced to third world countries. I just watched a documentary about it and how the FAA manuals are printed in english and the mechanics in costa rica and china have to use the pictures rather than written instructions as a guide.
So my connecting flight in Denver was departing at 1:26pm, and it was a 3 hour flight away, and at 11:30am I was still standing in line. Finally it was my turn and I was able to get a flight at 6:00pm leaving Denver for Seattle that had a seat on it. Lucky me! Around comes noon and shortly thereafter we board the plane for takeoff. The pilot has a ski trip planned for the next day in Denver and is antsy to get home. Once we are all seated, the pilot comes on and tells us that the cap arrived, but did not have a gasket, and they were currently looking for a gasket. Everyone on the plane lets out a big Ugh! and people start cracking jokes, "Too bad there isn't an airport around that stocks parts".
So they let us off the plane now for a second time and everyone stands at the gate in anticipation. The lone woman at the computer takes the loud speaker and announces that the flight has not yet been canceled, however there will be no one at the gate to help us, if we want a different flight or any assistance, we must go out to the main entrance and speak with a representative there. She then walked away, leaving an entire plane's worth of passengers to fend for themselves.
I stick around for half an hour when someone on the flight notices it's been delayed on the monitor until 3:00pm. I head to security and before exiting show the officer the stub from my flight since we'd already boarded and ask if I will be able to get in with it. He takes it and my ID and says sure, it has all the flight info on it. He says if they give me any trouble to get him. So I talk to the United representative who says that my flight hasn't been canceled, so there was nothing they could do. This was roughly 2:00pm so I then started to rush back since it said it was leaving at 3:00pm. I get to security and the line was insanely long. I waited for half an hour before getting to the first person who checks ID's and tickets. She took one look at my stub and pointed me away, saying I had to have a full ticket, I told her it had all the information and she told me to get a full ticket. I was pissed and stormed away dropping F bombs and making a scene.
I get to the United section and find yet another monsterous line, only this time there are half a dozen people from my flight mixed in who are in the same stub boat as me, who are dropping F bombs as well. The guy who was next to me on the plane was yelling at a United employee about what a lazy piece of shit she was, how she could print out a ticket just as easy from her not busy row of computers as the ones we were waiting for. Meanwhile I'm dropping F bombs explaining my situation on the cell phone, talking about how awsome it is to have airline maintenance outsourced to third world countries. Finally my seatmate attracts enough attention that a person behind the counter by our desk asks, "Are you just trying to get your tickets re-printed"? Eight or so of us raise our ticket stubs in the air and yell at him that we do. He prints them all out and gets them back to us, so we head back to Security.
We get through the line together, talking about our lovely experience, and make it through the metal detector. My seatmate gets stopped and the security agent points out that the flight time on the ticket was 10:04am and it was after 2:00pm. I showed her mine and explained it to her. Meanwhile my laptop bag was in the xray machine. I headed to the end of the conveyor belt to get my belongings. The security agents take my laptop bag and pull it to the side. They remove the laptop and take it back to the beginning of the x-ray machine. Meanwhile there are now 8 people and their belongings between me and my laptop. Finally I get my laptop bag and laptop and head to my gate.
I get back to my gate and greet my fellow passengers. We watch the monitor, which changes from a 3:00pm departure to 4:00pm. Then when that came it changed to 4:15pm and then we boarded. We took off and arrived in Denver at 6:45pm and I rushed to find yet another connecting flight having missed my second. I finally got on a flight and made it back to Seattle at 10:30pm, which would be 1:30am east coast time, having started my day at 4:00am and eating only a bag of trail mix, this was a long day.
I get home and go to sleep. The next morning I get up and setup my laptop. I turn it on and it comes to some windows login I've never seen before. I didn't have a password on my laptop, and judging by the windows username my heart began to sink. I started looking at the laptop and notice it has a page up key which mine had lost to the dogs. Holy shit, piece of shit airport security!
I call BWI airport lost & found along with TSA. BWI calls me back and says they don't cover security screening losses, check with TSA. Today TSA calls me to get my information and informs me that this week alone that particular department has had 12 switched laptops, but none matching my travel date. They tell me to give it a few days. If it doesn't turn up I can file a claim that doesn't guarantee me anything, and to file a claim I have to mail them the laptop I currently have, and it's not likely I'll get anything in return unless someone turns in my laptop.
