Airport Disaster Stories

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by nekokami

In which case, can you blame me for avoiding it???

Well, no, but I was trying without luck, to remain on topic...

[RWood]

I love Miami International. Every time I have flown through there something always goes missing from my baggage. Most often shoes. Sometimes just one, sometimes a full pair. (Amazing how much more responsive airline claims can be when your bags come out in several plastic tubs and you can hold up one shoe and ask where the other one might be located.)

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by RWood

I love Miami International. Every time I have flown through there something always goes missing from my baggage. Most often shoes. Sometimes just one, sometimes a full pair. (Amazing how much more responsive airline claims can be when your bags come out in several plastic tubs and you can hold up one shoe and ask where the other one might be located.)

maybe that's why they call it "MIA". (and you thought that meant "Miami International Airport. pfff. how naïve of you.)

[Slite]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

maybe that's why they call it "MIA". (and you thought that meant "Miami International Airport. pfff. how naïve of you.)

Gawd, You should be seriously punished for that one! It was horrendous.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Slite

Gawd, You should be seriously punished for that one! It was horrendous.

She will be. She's got a bunch of bogus flights to look forward to. I think she's entitled to a few awful jokes in advance.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nekokami

She will be. She's got a bunch of bogus flights to look forward to. I think she's entitled to a few awful jokes in advance.

thanks neko. i'd even add that the saga (and i mean that in the epic sense) of trying to reserve the flights was in itself sufficiently traumatic that i've now got a lifetime entitlement to horrendously bad jokes at the expense of any airport i choose, whether i have actually transited through it or not (especially since as we know there are not multiple airports but just The Airport which is in fact an alternate dimension existing independently of earth time and space, and with portals in various major cities around the world).

[nekokami]

Seems reasonable to me.

[Taylor514ce]

Now you all know why I simply refer to it as "The Airport". There is only one. There is a certain continuity to entering O'Hare, then into a metal tube that shakes around for an hour or two or three, then you exit the tube at ATL and wonder if you dare to eat spicy chicken from Popeyes before you're next ensconcement in a shaking metal tube... it's all one place.

Try reading Carver's stuff while your at it. The Airport is a terrestrial version of ShipWorld. I think I saw a Shadow Person swipe my Coke and then disappear through an n-space portal.

[DixieGal]

Yer all a bunch of sissies, boo hoo hoo. Well, welcome to the trenches - it ain't gonna get no better! I'm fixin' to tell you some airport HORROR stories that will turn your hair white!

In order from easiest to worst, but not inclusive of every airport I've been through nor of all my airport horror stories:

O'Hare - A long layover there is good. You can get Vienna Beef hotdogs, eat cheese popcorn from Pop of the Walk (What's the name of that popcorn place? I forgot.), go to the Chi Art Institute, or the Field Museum if you have a really long layover. At night or in blizzards, just stay in the terminal and eat hotdogs and popcorn. Make friends with your fellow stranded travelers - you have a hatred of airports in common already. Now for the horror part - my inlaws like to pick us up for a day or night out on the town. (terrified shiver)

Cincinnati - Nice, small, humble Cinci, right? Wrong. This airport is about the size of Bham's so you can stroll from terminal to terminal without being rushed. It is clean, well marked with signage, friendly terminal workers. A flyer's dream, right? A lot of people are using it to avoid ATL. HOWEVER, this is where old airplanes go to die. I remember getting off a heckish 10 hr connection from Paris, (more about CDG below) getting a snack and strolling along to my terminal with plenty of time to spare. We had come down from the rage we felt at CDG, so boarding was pleasant, no problems. Four hrs later, we were still sitting on the plane while the mechanics kept telling the flight crew that they couldn't keep the electricity going. (BTW, winter in Cinci claws its way inside a plane without electricity.) The long delay was because they had to request a spare plane from Indianpolis. So we all disembarked one plane and re-embarked another. Made it to Bham in less than an hr after that. Couldn't say the same for our bags. NOBODY'S bags had been transferred to the replacement plane. And after many calls to tell them to "just go look in the bottom of that broken down plane in the hangar," it took them 2 days to get around to looking for them.

Atlanta - Where does one begin to describe that 10th circle of heck? Baggage? Magically changing terminals numbers? Utter lack of any sort of readable signage? Baggage handling at ATL is carried out by a couple of goons with big muscles and bad attitudes. You pick up your bags, if they should happen to arrive with you, and ride the trains and travel the miles until you get to this warehouse-looking place, at the door to which the goons begin bellowing to you to run and bring them the bags. I was once physically threatened because I wanted to get something out of my bag. And I'm a GIRL, but they were gonna hit me! Terminal numbering is arbitrary there, and how the heck is one supposed to have the foreknowledge to know that Term C8, C9, and C11 are near each other (relatively speaking), but you gotta take a train and taxi and another plane just to get to C10 somewhere over in Boondocks, Georgia. Once, the ticket agent gave me a boarding pass to CDG but the connecting boarding pass left Heathrow. AND SHE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT!!!! So we got to Paris with a 1 1/2 hrs layover, ran like blazes to the ticket agent, ran like blazes again and boarded the plane with the crew just as they wree shutting the doors. (More about CDG below) Another time, we got a parking ticket becuase Husband pulled up to the curb, was asking the security guard a question, and the other security guard came over and gave us a ticket WHILE the other one was talking to Husband. And when I backtalked him, he threatened to arrest me! OK, maybe I called him a nasty name, but can you blame me? Somehow, I always get hurt or threatened when I'm at ATL. Had a girl pushing one of those suitcase buggies slam into the side of my leg and break the bone. ATL is a very violent place.

Charles De Gualle - While ATL is the devil's connection in the US, CDG is his main hub. After what I assume had to be a long search for the only ugly location in all of France to plunk this sprawling monstrosity down, they pursued the art of confusion with single-minded devilish devotion. Riddle me this: One boards a plane through a tunnel thingy, right? But one can not ever never ever disembark through one. Every flight into CDG ends up with you on the tarmac in a shuttle bus - if you are lucky. Sometimes if there are only a few dozen of you, then you wait in the glass booth for a plane to land and release enough prisoners to make it worth the airports while to send a shuttle. Don't bother trying to find your own way, becuase they don't allow you to walk around outside the terminal. I have had two especially horrifying experiences at CDG: One was just very inconvenient, the other was life-threatening. The most inconvenient experience I ever had at CDG was when my flight to Rome had to connect with there. We all shuffled off that long transatlantic flight with stiff backs and swollen ankles, all 800 of us. Now, one quickly learns that at CDG, one will face a line from farther back than one can see the booth to present passports. This time, we got there just in time for the passport takers to go on strike. During the course of the next 3 hrs, another plane landed with another 800 passengers. We all stood there in a room waaaay too small for 1600 people for 3 hrs, at which time the strike ended and the booth drones returned to work. We only missed a total of 5 planes that day. However, back in 2004, I think, Terminal 2 or 3 (the new one) was newly opened for business. All glass and steel, sexy curved walls, really great. This was our first time thru the new terminal and we both remarked on how badly you could feel the floor shaking under the feet of all those disembarking passengers. About 2 hrs later, it fell off the airport. Several people were injured and killed. Let me repeat: THE TERMINAL FELL OFF FROM THE REST OF THE TERMINAL. We were still waiting for our flight at the time, which of course, was re-terminaled, which meant another blazing run through CDG. Luckily the floors sort of bounce under your steps, so you can run really fast. I wonder when those will also fall off the terminal? But I'm not alone in my hatred for CDG. I'm attaching an article from the latest VacationsToGo newsletter.

You ain't had a bad flight until you travel Air France.

[RWood]

Back in the early 80s I had taken the 747-400 commuter flight from JFK to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (as my passport said at the invitation of their government) where they tried to play Educating Rita for a second time (in-flight hell.) When we land they send out the buses to greet us. We were led to a several story tall room with pit marks on the floor every now and then. Three lines seemed to form -- one for Saudis, one for "westerners, and one for others. When I looked up I noticed the guards in their positions with their automatic weapons ready.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by RWood

Back in the early 80s I had taken the 747-400 commuter flight from JFK to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (as my passport said at the invitation of their government) where they tried to play Educating Rita for a second time (in-flight hell.) When we land they send out the buses to greet us. We were led to a several story tall room with pit marks on the floor every now and then. Three lines seemed to form -- one for Saudis, one for "westerners, and one for others. When I looked up I noticed the guards in their positions with their automatic weapons ready.

Scary! And those same guys handle bags in Atlanta now.

[BookishDreamer]

I think DixieGal wins.

I've flown less than a dozen times and so far I've only had one missed flight and one temporarily missing suitcase as a result of aforementioned missed flight. Luckily the suitcase showed up in Madrid a few hours before I was scheduled to leave the city for a nine day tour of the country.

note to self: Don't fly with any members of MR.

Dreamer

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by BookishDreamer

note to self: Don't fly with any members of MR.

Dreamer

Wise note to self!
(PS: For our upcoming week in DC, we decided to go by train.)

I remember the time last fall when we took 3 planes and 12 hrs to onluy go to Puerto Vallarta. When you fly into Mexico City airport, it is frightening. The largest city in the world, and you can't tell from teh air where the city ends and airport begins. Oh, and they also have a big active volcano, right in the midst of everything. But the airport is utterly hassle free, believe it or not! They realize that the place is huge, so there are fleets of golf carts and drivers who will take you to your departure gate, and even know ahead of time when the gates are changed! No airport trains, no brutal baggage handlers, nobody trying to break your bones. Just a pleasant experience all around.

BTW, I forgot to mention also having my leg broken on the shuttle at Rome's airport. That time, the shuttle slammed on the brakes and I fell over my carry-on. Can't blame it on the airport, but I'm just saying that I'm usually due for the ER after a long vacation. My doc used to joke about needing to have my x-ray appt ready before I leave for vacation.

For instance, in Spain in May '07 was the worst accident so far. I went down a flight of marble steps on my face in a hotel in Tarifa. Broke jaw, mandible, nose, eye (2 fractures), and a general web of fractures on the left side of my face. Required 2 surgries on my face/jaw, and 4 eye surgeries to date since the accident.

Imagine if we were heavy drinkers!

[DixieGal]

Continued....

Staph infections in both feet from running barefoot over broken glass at Daytona Beach

Pneumonia from a Japanese man who shared a Paris subway pole with me and sneezed directly into my face

Had a sandal malfunction and fell halfway under the subway in Barcelona and was hanging by my hands under the subway car

Caught in Madrid flood twice, almost swept into sewer on one occasion. Had to buy new shoes. Threw away the clothes!


Even so, we love to travel and will endure many a hardship in order to see the world. To be continued as things come to mind .......

[Taylor514ce]

DixieGal: write a book. I'd buy it. Possible title, "Travel Guide for the Clumsy, Where to find antibiotics and splints in the major world cities."