Matt Keally's Blog

As I sit here back at home writing this, a lone book sits high on the bookshelf, looming over me: “What Are the Odds,” by Mike Orkin.  An apt title for the past five days, which were probably the longest five days I’ve had in quite awhile.  What are the odds that I would get screwed on the way over and on the way back from Rome?  The odds were pretty good.

The mess with the delayed flight from Norfolk keeping me home for two days was frustrating, but at least I was at home and not stuck in Philadelphia.  At least on the second attempt I made it without any problems.  After three days of walking and my SECON presentation, I was tired and jet lagged and ready to go home.  I knew that on my trip back that anything could happen.  I’ve had enough experiences with cancellations, delays, and lost bags to know that with each flight I was rolling the dice.  On this trip, my number came up twice.

I got up at 6:30 AM Rome time, or 12:30 AM in Virginia.  The train station was right across the street from the hotel, but it took almost 15 minutes of walking to get to where the train was.  There were 30 platforms, some of which were behind others, so it was quite the walk with my suitcase out to the train.  Fortunately, my dad and I bought tickets before we left at a machine so I didn’t have to waste time figuring out how to get a ticket.  One wheel of my suitcase started to come apart and made quite the racket as I dragged it around everywhere.

The train left on time and got to the airport on time.  I entered the airport terminal the same way we left and assumed that the ticket counter would be just inside.  A sign said there were concourses A, B, and C.  My dad and I arrived at C, and it appeared as though I would leave the same way.  A monitor said the flight was on time.

I tried to find the ticket counter.  There was a whole sea of them just inside from where the train dumped me out.  A directory listed all the airlines and where the ticket counters were.  It said US Airways: counter 511.  But, the ticket counters in the terminal only went from 200 to 400.  Where was 511?  Looking around in disbelief, a small, out of the way sign said US Airways ticket counters were in “Terminal 5″.  Terminal 5?  How did that line up with concourses A, B, or C?  More importantly, how does one get there?  Another small poorly placed sign announced that a bus outside would go to Terminal 5.  I went outside and found the sign for the bus and waited.  As I waited a crowd began to form by the sign.  It got bigger and bigger and the bus wasn’t coming.

Finally, the bus came and we packed in.  Half the line got left outside.  The bus wound its way all over the airport for ten minutes before arriving at the secret Terminal 5.  Since I had web check-in and printed my boarding pass at the conference, I didn’t need to stand in line.  I got my passport checked off and was put back on another bus to the terminal I started at.

When I got to the gate there wasn’t much going on but soon all the seats were packed and a large Italian family sat next to me and had a loud and heated conversation.  Some of them hovered over me as they conversed loudly.  Either the concept of personal space is nonexistent to them or they were trying to get me to leave by being obnoxious.  It was probably a bit of both: I got up and found another seat next to an American couple who complained about the only coffee in the place was a bar that served only espresso shots.  They really wanted their brewed coffee.  I didn’t blame them.

The flight back to Philadelphia left on time and arrived on time.  I had a window seat, but there wasn’t much to look at but clouds and bits of the ocean beneath.  We crossed over the Alps and parts of France, but the clouds covered most of that too.  Most of the transatlantic trips I’ve taken had the ocean blanketed by clouds.  I’m not sure why this is.

The flight was nine hours, the longest I’d ever taken, but my sister took one that was something like 16 or 18 when she went to China.  Nine was uncomfortable enough.  I watched a movie, read several hundred pages of a book, and went to sleep.  Everything cramped up.  Fortunately, the flight attendants came by frequently with drinks.

Since I was near the front of the coach section and had carried on all my bags, it was easy to get off the plane and get through passport control and customs.  I was through all that within 10 minutes, and fortunately customs did not ransack my computer looking for contraband.  I would have had quite the fit if they decided to do that.  I’m hoping these warrantless searches go to court soon.

I arrived in terminal A-West in Philadelphia, and the Norfolk flight left from at the far end of terminal F.  My dad says this is about a two mile walk.  There is a shuttle bus, but since I had been on the plane for nine hours and hadn’t run or biked in four days, I wanted the exercise.  I had to go back through security again at F, but it wasn’t too bad.  I had plenty of time: I got through customs at 3:30 Eastern time and my plane to Norfolk didn’t leave until 5.

Then the problems started.  At the gate for the Norfolk flight, it was announced that the plane would leave 30 minutes late.  A whole pile of people at the gate had missed earlier Norfolk flights and would be standing by for this one.  Fortunately, I had a seat assignment.

5:30 came and went and the plane never arrived at the gate and the agent disappeared.  Some pilots in uniform came to the gate who were commuting home and whined about the lack of agents.  With no plane and no agent, 6:00 came and went.  Then, another passenger for my flight who walked down the hall to the departures monitor said the flight was cancelled.  Panic ensued.

Getting hold of my parents, I was able to learn the reservations number from the Internet.  Apparently the plane got stuck in New York due to weather and they just decided to drop the rest of its flights.  I asked the agent about other flights.  No flights had seats through Norfolk until 3 PM the next day.  No flights had seats through Newport News until the next morning.  Despite complaining about my outbound screwup, the reservation agent said I would not be compensated for a hotel room due to weather.  The agent booked me on the early morning Newport News flight and I thought about going to one of those Special Services desks and complaining until they gave me a hotel for free.

I talked to my parents again and again, using the power of the Internet, learned that I could get to Richmond.  Surprisingly, my mom said if I could get to Richmond, she would drive the two hours to get me.  There was a plane that left at 6:25.  If I hurried, I might make it.  Unlike the Norfolk flight, this flight was a mainline flight and left from C concourse and I was in F.  I raced to the shuttle bus and got on the bus which happened to be just about to leave.

As I was on the bus, my phone rang: my adviser.  Thinking I was back home, he told me that the session chair said I had made it to the presentation and that it went well.  This was the worst time to be discussing this: I told him I was about to be stuck in Philadelphia.  He couldn’t believe it.  We talked some more about what a mess the travel was and then hung up and got off the bus.

I raced through the terminal and crashed into the check in desk at the gate for the Richmond flight.  The plane was there.  Two agents were there, one of whom told me to slow down as I mashed into the desk and my bags fell on the floor.  I told them my story about the canceled flight and my rebooking and asked if I could get on the plane to Richmond.  After a minute of typing, I got a new boarding pass and got on the plane.

The plane closed its door early and we pushed back before 6:25.  We got away from the terminal and stopped.  Out the window, the taxiways looked like a parking lot of airplanes.  They were everywhere.  The pilot got on the PA and said weather was preventing takeoffs to the north, but we were going to leave to the south.  The problem was that all the northbound planes were in the way and couldn’t move.  He sounded less than optimistic about getting out of there anytime soon.

We waited and waited some more.  A girl got up to use the bathroom.  When she came out, the whole plane smelled of cigarette smoke.  A flight attendant came by and asked if she had been smoking, of course she denied doing so.  A guy behind me said he was on a flight where someone next to him smoked in his seat and when the plane landed, the smoker was arrested.

7:00 PM came and went and we sat there, looking at the gridlock.  A few planes took off.  My legs were hurting from all the sitting.  I called home and my dad couldn’t believe I was still sitting on the taxiway.  My mom had already left for Richmond.

As we sat there and whined about the delay, I learned the guys across from me were also refugees from the Norfolk flight.  They had missed an earlier Norfolk flight and were going to stand by for mine until it was cancelled.  Like me, they had called someone to come and pick them up in Richmond and drive them back to Virginia Beach.

7:45 passed by and we had moved across a runway but were still stuck with planes in front of us.  The captain came on again and said the control tower had slowed down departures to one plane per 20 miles.  I hadn’t seen anything take off in almost an hour.  It was starting to rain.  If a storm came over the airport, that would be the end.  We would go back to the gate and hundreds of people would be spending the night in the airport, myself included.

Finally, by 8 PM, planes started taking off again at regular intervals, but the captain told us we were way back in line and it would still be another 25 minutes.  Unbelievably, my mom had already arrived at the airport in Richmond and was waiting in the terminal.  By 8:50 and after two hours of waiting, we were in the air.  Fortunately, it was a short flight and we were in Richmond by 9:30.  As we were deplaning, one of the other guys from the Norfolk flight said he was going to flip if his bags didn’t make the plane.  Good luck.

My mom met me in the Richmond terminal and it was a quick drive back with no traffic jams.  Finally, after midnight and nearly 24 hours of traveling, I was back home.  I slept like a rock and it felt great to get out on the bike this morning.

Perhaps I should write letters to US Airways and the DOT.  What this will accomplish, I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll get a small voucher to use for my next trip, which will stay well clear of Philadelphia.  There had better be direct flights to Boston when I go to WASA.  I took one when I went to IC4As in 2007, but it might be different now.  It seems that the solutions to these travel nightmares may be mitigated by:

• Re-introducing more mainline flights.  Apparently, regional jets are more prone to maintenance issues and do not handle weather as easily.
• Add more capacity.  With every flight oversold, one cancellation creates a huge cascade of stuck travelers that cannot be rebooked onto the next flight.  Adding more mainline flights will help this.
• Add more point to point flights or stagger departures and arrivals at hub airports.  It seems that planes leave or arrive at a hub simultaneously, leading to huge traffic delays.  Southwest has a good model to follow for this one.
• Reduce capacity through hub airports that are prone to weather delays.  It seems that if someone so much as spits in Philadelphia, the whole place shuts down.
• Provide better customer service to help stranded travelers.  I only found out the plane was canceled when another passenger told me.  With no agent at the gate, the only option was to call the reservation office.  Airlines should guarantee that a passenger will arrive at his or her destination within some fixed, reasonable time period or else provide a full refund.

Fortunately, I have time to recover from this before my next plane trip in August.  If my next paper gets in to RTSS, I’ll only have to go to Washington.  Maybe in the meantime, I’ll actually be able to get back to doing research since the last couple weeks have been spent mostly dealing with this trip.