Ft. Lauderdale – Tampa | SW 168 | exit row

Despite my impersonation of a limp noodle while boarding due to the air conditioning being out in the Ft. Lauderdale airport, the flight was awesome. Short, sweet and on-time. Props to Shelby, the Southwest flight attendant who was entertaining in his demonstration of the safety procedures.

Ft. Lauderdale – Tampa | SW 168 | Pre-flight

The opportunities to post here keep on coming. This time at security on my way to get Southwest flight 168 from Ft. Lauderdale. Connie and I were prepping our belongings to go through the security checkpoint and she put her bins on the conveyor belt so she could begin the airport strip tease (you know what I’m talking about – taking off shoes, belts, bras with metal underwires, haha) and running them through the x-ray machine. This woman, let’s call her Alice, comes running by like she is late for a funeral and and jumps the line. Connie and I look at each other and start laughing at her rudeness. Just as she spreads her stuff out EVERYWHERE she realizes that she needs more bins. She runs around us, now to the back of the line, to grab more bins. Connie was quite indignant and grabbed her stuff and jumped Alice in line, regaining her rightful position. I let Alice know that she should at least be prepared if she was cutting the line. Oh yeah, and she almost lost her drivers license which I picked off the floor. The security gods were on our side though as they confiscated her cooler filled with who-knows-what and sent her off for secondary screening. I hope she isn’t going to Tampa.

Oh yeah, let’s chat about Sally, the insurance saleswoman who is sitting next to me and screaming into her phone at the top of her lungs. Dude, I am pretty sure your customers don’t want you blabbing their names and private information in your phone loud enough for everyone in the terminal for me to hear.

I should mention that I love Southwest. The ticket agent was awesome and helped me with a problem with my ticket and the announcements are abundant. Thanks!

LGA – FLL | JetBlue 375 | 10A – Take Two

In all fairness, the flight itself was fine. I enjoyed the XM Radio, I ate the chocolate chip cookies, and the crew did a gracious job with such an unruly mob. Even baggage claim was better than expected. While it doesn’t excuse the airline’s atrocious behavior and lack of communication ALL DAY LONG, they got me to my destination safely. Will I ever go out of my way to choose JetBlue? I never say never but they sure do have a lot of work to do to get me to give them another try.

Update on Jet Blue Flight #375

Well, more than an hour and a half later, the plane that JetBlue promised from JFK has yet to materialize. It was supposed to be here around 2 and we were supposed to leave at 2:30-3:00. No plane. No announcement. No information. The lack of respect that this airline has for their customers is astonishing.

LGA – FT Lauderdale | Jet Blue 375 |#10A, aka “why i hate jet blue”

I haven’t written here in a while, but sometimes something happens that just spurs you into action. Today was that day for me with this blog. It started innocently enough – I got to the airport on time and boarded my flight. We went out to the runway and then stopped. And sat. And sat. Other planes went on by and took off but we sat. Finally, an announcement that there was a problem with the fuel gauge and we were going back to the gate for maintenance. Ok, fair enough. Better safe than sorry.

We got back to the gate and the captain announced we’d be 15-20 minutes. An hour passed. He announced we’d be another 10-15 minutes. A half hour passed. I asked to get off the plane to get a snack. They said no. I asked for some water. They said they weren’t serving food and beverage until we were in the air. Eventually they announced that “wahlah, the problem was solved and the maintenance crew was finishing final paperwork – we’d be ready to go (for real) in 15 more minutes.”

As you can ptobably assume by now, fifteen minutes passed, and then another, and then came the apology – that after close to 3.5 hours they were taking the plane out of service. So now I am sitting at gate B5 waiting to hear how I will get to my meeting in Ft. Lauderdale. There is no announcement and the gate agents don’t know what is going on. They have no information other than “we are TRYING to get a plane here from JFK but it is raining out…”

Stay tuned.

United 7614 OHare to Kansas City, 9/22/09

Main parking lot full at O’Hare so I’m in some other county in Illinois. 90 minute drive plus shuttle bus to tram to a 45 minute flight to a 90 minute drive. Should have just drove to Topeka.

Mexico City, Mexico – Miami, FL | American Airlines 2114 | 6F

Early morning flights are always a bitch – getting up at 4AM is never fun – unless of course you are going freediving.  Everything went more than smooth and I actually passed out for most of the flight – did not have breakfast or watched any movie.

Immigration was quick and easy…it was ALL GOOD – except that I missed my cougar.

Miami, FL – Mexico City, Mexico | AA 2115 | 6E

Courgar Love - boarding pass with a flirt

American Airlines made my day at the counter – the image above says it all…I was checked in by a good looking cougar who started talking to me about my trip – not the usual counter questions.  Needless to say, after a few lip pouts and eyelash flatters I started to get the feeling that she was flirting with me…as I left and looked down on my boarding pass – expecting to find a circle – I found a heart – HAAAAAAAAA…no delay, mechanical problem, or bad service could bring my down now – my day and flight was made.

Of course I had to twitter and Facebook this experience – one of my collegues said, and I quote: “The things you do to women, Leander. Powerful.” – just oozing with sarcasm…

Thank you American Airlines – and particularly you Ms. Cougar where ever you are for the love…

Tampa, FL – New York, NY | Delta #1508 | 12C

Blogging from 30,000 feet – that has been a long time coming. I have to say that the GoGo InFlight works pretty well and I’d definitely pick an airline if the cost was competitive to be able to have Internet access. A lot of people say they don’t want it, but I love it.

Anyway, the flight started out uneventful enough. And then HE boarded. You know him. The huffing and puffing guy who gets to the gate late with too much carry-on luggage and then gets aggravated when the overhead bins are full. He then proceeds to stomp his feet, look around with that, “do you know who I am” look, and then tries to jam his dirty bag into the bin with no regard to whose stuff got their first. I didn’t have anything in the overhead bin so I wasn’t particularly concerned – until stuff started falling out of the bin. On my head. I am not kidding. First a guy’s jacket. He apologize. Then a woman’s hairbrush. A hairbrush? Really? Yes. She apologized too. The only one who didn’t apologize was the guy who was too busy stuffing his back into the bin. Finally a flight attendant shuffled him down the aisle and he went to torment someone else.

The rest of the flight has been fine so far. According to FlightAware.com I have 42 minutes and 309 miles to go.

Los Angeles, CA – Miami, FL | AA 456 | 2A

B/W view from plane

So I was supposed to be back in Miami yesterday – unfortuntately my flight was canceled due to a windshield failure, AA did not have any replacement plans at the time and there were no other flights that would get me into Miami the same day.

While AA was nice enough to provide me with a hotel room for the night, they only gave me two $10 vouchers (lunch and dinner) which barely got me a coffee. I did write them, explained the situation, and recevied a 15,000 mile credit on my Advantage account.

So today my day started very early – 4AM to catch a 6:15AM flight direct to Miami. The flight was extremely uneventful and the pilot very boring compare to the last one coming to Miami.

Now I just hope I remember where I left my car parked…