is travel news boring after a few days?

[lauradi7dw]

I fly back and forth to visit my parents every couple of weeks. With careful ticket purchasing, this is just enough on JetBlue to get me to their Mosaic status. There aren't lounges, and I object to alcohol on planes, so getting one free drink is not a draw, but being able to do a same-day change in a flight is a huge perk. On Wednesday, I was scheduled to come home midday, which is my preference, so that I can take public transportation (sometimes at each end), but 5:30 PM was the only time convenient for the new caregiver (one of six) to come by to meet, so I switched to the last flight of the day, scheduled for 8:45 PM. I tend to worry about taking the last flight of the day (or last local bus home from the subway station, for that matter), because what if it gets cancelled? Is that a spoiler? I got an email from JetBlue at about 6, I guess, saying that the flight would be delayed by two hours, but I should go to the airport at the usual hour early time, just in case. Rule-following me did so, and about eleven of us (really) hung around for hours more, as the delays mounted. One of the people may have had the flu (or pneumonia? Wracking cough, looked feverish). I didn't have the nerve to hand him a mask. Finally boarded at 11:30 something. Taxied to the far end of the runway. Sat. Sat. Pilot came on to tell us that he thought something was wrong with a tire, or something. Back to the terminal, off the plane. Maintenance people poked around. Crew timed out. Flight cancelled. Rebooking the eleven of us took a surprising amount of time. Most people opted for a 9 AM flight and a hotel room, but a couple of us asked for the 5:10 AM flight and chose to spend the night in the terminal. Desk agent had to get us special permission, as only the cleaning people and security guards are supposed to be there after the last flight, but by that point it was only four hours until boarding time, so it seemed ridiculous to waste a hotel room (sheets, towel, cleaning) for a couple of hours of sleep, and it would have been even sillier to go back to my parents' house. I spent about half an hour lying on the floor. I knew it was clean, because I had seen the cleaning crew shampoo it. The guy told me the chemical they used, but it was a brand name and I didn't recognize it. Might have been more dangerous than a day's worth of foot dirt, I suppose. My backpack (the one that fits under the seat, my usual travel item) turns out to not be a terrible pillow, but I couldn't sleep, even with my eyes covered. All the lights were on, *ALL OF THE TVs WERE ON, cleaning crews were doing their thing or taking breaks, chatting), and it's a little weird to be somewhere I wasn't exactly supposed to be, anyway. I read most of the new Kingfisher novel "Paladin's Grace," used my $8 apology voucher at the new bao place at 4:30 AM, got on the plane. Took a nap, took the T home, and then tried to stay awake most of the day, rather than going to bed in the daytime. I was tired, not very useful, but did get some laundry done. So now I know I can do an all-nighter, more or less, if I need to.
It seemed like a bigger deal at the time, but now it's just one more trip, I guess. I'm sure it was way more nuisance for JetBlue itself, because one of their scheduled planes was sitting in the wrong airport overnight, waiting for repairs. Also, three or four desk agents and a few repair people had hours
added to their shifts without any advance notice. What do people like that do about child care, just for one example?

* I worry about my carbon footprint from all the flying, but now I know that I need to worry about the power wasted by keeping everything going 24/7 at an airport.

Comments

[nosrednayduj]

I had a ski trip to Wyoming that had a "sit in the denver airport for hours" step, and a "fly to Jackson Hole, be unable to land, turn around and fly back to denver" step, and a "get booked into a hotel by the airline with way too little time for sleeping scheduled in" step, and finally, an "arrive back at the airport the next day to see a plane ON ITS SIDE off the runway, lines out the doors at all desks, and a general zoo" step, at which point we decided "there are mountains in Colorado", rented a car and drove off to Keystone, where we paid enormously too much for lodging, plus vast hassle to get our return flight changed to be *from denver* rather than *from wyoming* (I've had this hassle elsewhen&where, when I ducked a last (delayed) segment and rented a car instead) and lost value of the wyoming condo (who were willing to give us a big discount to be applied the next year so it wasn't that terrible financially in the end). The airplane on its side was pretty dramatic (actually it was tilted at an angle, the wing held it partially up).

Did you hear about the "jet blue to go carbon neutral" plan? I'm not sure how it's going to work unless they can actually take carbon out of the air to compensate; just building some windmills won't really help. Planting trees is fine, but kind of slow.

[lauradi7dw]

I can't match the tilted plane. We've had domino missed flights over time, but maybe that's to be expected if one flies a lot. The rental car story that comes to mind must have been in the early 1980s, ish. It was Christmas travel time. When we left Logan, the plane was on time. Nobody in the terminal said that anything was unusual, but while we were in the air, RDU closed and we were re-routed to Greensboro. It was before cell phones. When we got to Greensboro, the airline was arranging for buses to take all the passengers to RDU, where we knew my sister would be waiting. But we noticed someone else demanding compensation from the desk person. We said "We'd like that too." We took the voucher over to the car rental desk and rented a car. Then we had to have the desk people call the paging number at RDU, and drove to my parents' house. My sister was with the masses waiting in the waiting area, and dozed off. They kept paging her from time to time, and when she finally responded to the paging desk, they said "Go home. They rented a car."

[sorcyress]

I've been pretty disappointed by my inability to do all-nighters very well anymore, although it sounds like you weren't forcing yourself to do particularly taxing things the next day (which seems the good way to do it)

[lauradi7dw]

I don't sleep soundly all night, so I'm tired a lot of the time anyway. I am probably going to be doing an overnight train trip soon.

[negothick]

I hope that your good deed of visiting parents is not punished by illness from all those travel misadventures and contagious people.

'Twas good to see you in Real Life (if Boskone is Real Life)--wish it had been longer. I am always so distractable at cons, when I know I have obligations to meet. . .

[lauradi7dw]

I'm pretty careful about hand hygiene, although sometimes I wish it would be safe to stick sanitizer up one's nose. I don't know that I am made ill by flying, I ride the T many times a week and volunteer at a hospital, so it's not like airplanes are the only places I encounter germs.