"He, verily, shall increase the reward of them that endure with patience."
- Baha'u'llah
My trip back to Africa seemed to be going fine until I got to Chicago. As those of you from Little Rock know, it takes an act of Congress to get anywhere other than Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas from Little Rock "National" Airport. Since I was on my way to New York, I had a stop over at Midway in Chicago. If you haven't been to Midway lately, they've really improved it. It's almost as nice as O'Hare and not nearly so crowded.
Anyway, I was taking a Southwest Airlines partner from Chicago to New York - ATA Airlines - so I had to go to the counter at the gate to get my boarding pass. When the man asked if he could help me, I shoved the piece of paper across the desk and grumbled, "Boarding pass." Bear in mind I'd been up since 4:00 AM, and I'd only gotten about three hours of sleep. I know Southwest people are humorous and good natured, but it seems the employees of their partner companies are, too. "Boarding pass? What do you mean 'boarding pass'? What kind of way is that to come up to me and start asking for something?" the man asked, clearly joking. "This ain't New York. Now let's try again."
I guess I had been a little rude, so I asked for it again in a little more polite tone. I stayed and talked to him for a bit once he found out where I was going and where I was from. Apparently three employees of ATA at Midway are from Arkadelphia, which is just weird. When you meet people from Arkansas outside of Arkansas you expect them to be from Little Rock or Fayetteville, not three people in the same place from the same place with a population of no more than 10,000.
After a bit of a wait, they announce that they want us to "hurry up" and get on the plane. So we all come rushing to the gate and, surprisingly, orderly board the plane. You'd never see that kind of thing in Africa. If they told us to hurry up and get on a plane here, everyone would bum rush the gate and probably one person would be trampled to death in the stampede. Lining up doesn't exist here. At any rate, when we were all on the plane they praised us for being so quick, but then told us we had to please get back off and sit in the gate area. No one seemed to believe the man at first because we weren't moving, but then he broke down into plain English: "Seriously, ya'll gotta get off this plane."
Back at the gate, they told us that La Guardia had shut down because of bad weather. They were trying to rush us on to the plane so we could take off before they closed, but we didn't make it in time. An hour and a half later, we were back on the plane and in the air. At La Guardia, I managed to finally collect my baggage at 5:00 PM. My flight left from JFK at 6:10. La Guardia was a madhouse. With the airport closing, it had thrown everything off. I've never seen so many people in an airport pushing and shoving and yelling. The line for taxis was ridiculous and all of the shuttle buses were running late because of traffic. Add to this that La Guardia is one of the most suffocatingly nasty and pathetic airports I've ever been in (and I have been to the Flint, Michigan airport).
Even if everything had fallen perfectly into place for me, it was doubtful that I would make it across Long Island from one airport to another, check-in, go through security and make it to my gate for an international flight in an hour and ten minutes. In fact, my entire booking depended on everything running smoothly - I had just enough time to get from La Guardia to JFK, grab a bite to eat, and get on the plane - so that was clearly my fault. In the words of the shuttle bus coordinator, "Ain't no way you makin' a 6:10 at JFK." He advised me to try to call the airline and rebook before the flight left and mayve after explaining the situation they wouldn't charge me a fee. After some wrangling with my mother and the Internet to get the number, my cell phone was near death. I knew I didn't have enough battery to last through the obligatory holding period of half an hour, so I decided to save it instead of waste it.
Finally at JFK, my arms were about to fall off. It turns out lugging around two 50 lbs. bags, a backpack and a laptop bag is not an ideal way to travel. Go figure. At the KLM ticket counter, I ran into what you might call a stereotypical New Yorker. I told him I'd missed my flight, to which he replied, "And...?" He finally rebooked my flights for the next day, charged me $200 for it and then sent me on my way. All without a smile. The art of friendly customer service seems to have been outsourced to India.
I stayed the night in a nice hotel near the airport (surprisingly quiet) and then came to the airport at 12:00 Noon, which is admittedly six hours before my flight, but still. There was no one at the ticket counter. It's the middle of the day and the place is completely deserted. I know a lot of international flights depart in the evening, but come on! What kind of ship is KLM running? What hours do their employees actually work? Around 2:30 PM some people finally shuffled in and started helping. After an eternity dealing with a person equally as friendly as the one the day before, I was told to wait in a line to pay my fee. It was taking so long to process the Europeans in front of me (they were being difficult) that they were finally kind enough to pull me aside and allow me to pay someone else. While standing in line, I saw no less than three different sets of people get infuriated by the ticket agent. In other words, KLM's New York-based agents are terrible.
In Amsterdam, I noticed the difference between American and Dutch security. In Amsterdam's Schipol airport, this is one of the security warnings: "For security purposes, please keep a close watch on your belongings." In Chicago's Midway airport, this is one of the security warnings: "DO NOT leave your baggage unattended. Please report unattended baggage. All unattended baggage will be seized and destroyed by the Chicago Police Department."
On the plane from Amsterdam to Dar es Salaam, I sat next to a judge on the High Court of Tanzania. It was nice to meet a prominent person for my External Affairs work. He was returning from some victimology conference in Florida, indicated by his gigantic bright pink hat with "FLORIDA" plastered across the front of it. He proved to be good company, and offered lunch the next time I'm in Dodoma.
At the airport, I was able to expedite myself through the "East African Residents" line at immigration, which was nice. I collected my luggage, which was all waiting for me, and headed to customs. "Anything to declare?" the man asked cheerfully. "Nope," I said, and off I went. Talk about thorough! Mitra and Hossein were waiting to pick me up. They both seemed happy to see me and at that point I was happy to be back. Back at the house I said hello to our new house guest and a sick May Saba, then collapsed in bed...but not before erecting the mosquito net, a necessity once again.
In closing, a word to the wise: please don't leave your baggage unattended in Chicago.
0 comments:
Post a Comment