Airplane Woes

The person who booked my flight wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing, because the second flight schedule he suggested involved three transfers and 36 hours of travel time. Not wanting to delay the process even longer, I decided not to argue with him (this was an e-mail correspondence), as asking him to choose a better flight schedule had already kept me in Vancouver an additional 4 days. Yes, I resisted, even though after taking three minutes to run a search on Kayak had provided me with a shorter journey, on better airlines with fewer transfers at a lower cost. If someone reading this finds themselves in the same position, I urge them to look up an itinerary on their own and send it to person responsible for booking the flight.

A note about extra baggage fees:

I had to pay excess baggage fees twice. The first time was with West Jet. I was told that I had to pay for my second bag, and that it would cost me $20. Then, after they weighed my first bag, they told me it was overweight, and that I would have to pay an additional $50. She then informed me that I would have to check my bags in again in Toronto, which meant I would have to pay the fees all over again.  I shot the clerk a look of incredulousness and, she just stared back blankly, as if complacently watching her favorite TV show (Telebubbies). Stupidly, I assumed that she would have told me if there was an easy way to avoid paying so much. Because of my misplaced faith in her, and the fact that I had only gotten three hours of sleep, it didn't realize until after passing security that  if your first bag is 60 lbs. and your additional bag is 40 lbs., you still pay the $50 in overweight fees; but if you get down on the ground, and awkwardly dig around in bags moving your shit from one bag to the other, thus equalizing the weight of both bags so that they both weigh 50 lbs., you only have to pay the $20 dollars for the additional bag. I wonder if they are trained not to tell people about this loophole. Either way, the policy means one of four things: the administration and Westjet are trying con you, the administration and Westjet are idiots, The kiosk workers are trying to con you, or the kiosk workers are idiots. Luckily, I was able to save the $50 the next time I checked my baggage, and didn't have to pay additional baggage fees after that.

The flight was for the most part uneventful. The planes were mostly shitty--the seats were terribly cramped, even for the transatlantic plane ride. The food wasn't good either. In general, quality of airplane flights seems to have gone down in the last few years--these days it's all about cramming as many people into the plane as possible.

Just and random observation but, no place outside of an airplane is social stratification so apparent. Global society is essentially composed of three classes: those who fly in coach, those who play three times as much for adequate personal space and leg room, and those who cannot afford to fly. It's the curtains between coach and first class that really drive this point home for me. It's one thing to give them better food, and space enough to stretch out and get a proper rest...and that's fine the airline is a business, blah, blah, blah. But I can't help but find it just a little bit insulting that they put up a curtain, between first class and coach. I always hear about people being moved up to first class, but I've only ever seen it once. Anyway, don't fly Etihad across the Atlantic, unless you're ready to shell out for first class--especially it you're over six foot.

Right, so I finally arrived in Jeddah after 36 hours. Granted, it was five in the morning, and there were a few hundred of us stepping off the plane (most of whom where Muslims going on umraa) but it took me four hours to get past immigration. Yeah, you read right. Four hours as in 240 minutes, as is 14400 seconds, as in long enough for me to go from excited, to worried, to baffled, to furious, to delirious. I won't dive into the details of WHY it took so long to get through passport control, but let's just say it was a comedy of errors, and a direct result of incompetence and heedlessness on the part of the airport staff. I did meet a friendly Indonesian lad that told me all about algae though...so that was good.

I was worried that once I finally got through passport control, that I would find that my bags weren't there, and that my driver had long since disappeared. Indeed, I couldn't find my bags. I talked to three different people and filled out a lost luggage form, then headed out of the baggage area. Just as I was stepping out the door, someone yelled out to me that they had found my bags. I couldn't find my driver initially either, but eventually discovered that he was there, too. So, at least the whole thing ended well.

More soon...