Still in the Upstate

By Chris

Sitting in the Greenville airport now. Shuttle situation actually worked
well this morning. But, the sound of thunder woke me up this morning,
which is never a good sign on an air travel day. I've come to learn that a
little stormy weather anytime anywhere on the east coast can mess up the
whole delicate chain of events that is air travel for the rest of the day.
Sure enough, it's sunny now at 10:20 and my 10:10 plane is not even at the
gate. At these small airports they don't tell you much either. The gate
sign, which is not digital, still says 10:10 as depart time. And check
this weird scenario out (another conformation of the zaniness of airline
business). I have a USAir ticket. So, I go to the USAir self service
kiosk to print my boarding passes (I have to fly past my destination city
to Washinton and change planes). Kiosk can't find my record. I go to the
live person ticket counter. They tell me I have to go to the United ticket
counter. Of course??? United and USair merged long ago. But apparently
still operate seperately except that your USAir ticket might put you on a
United flight wothout you even realizing it. Isn't the point of merger to
combine operation, eliminate redundancies? So I went down the hall to the
United counter, staffed by people dong the same job as the people down at
USAir's counter. How did that merger help either on of them?? I'm not
sure what airline will take me on my second leg, but I now have a United
boarding pass and a USAir iten. Document??? Bye. Plane's here