Back to Reality

By Chris

Day two back to work from vacation, and it was time for a journey to Atlanta, my first since the summer holiday travel season hit. And, right on cue, it was a HOT MESS. Leaving out of Newport News at 5:45 a.m., the airport was packed with people still trying to get out from the night before, making huge lines. I chose AirTran for this trip . . . and got a glimpse into some of the ways this particularly low-cost carrier cuts some costs. Their kiosk and ticketing system in general demonstrated some serious flaws. Being just up-and-back in a day (granted a 20-hour day), the kiosk should have spared me the long counter line. No such luck. Error message. See the desk. Great! That's not usually a good sign. By the way, this only happened AFTER it charged my card $35 for the optional upgrade to business class (that's the upside to Airtran . . . it's always worth buying on the travel day that starts that early. Agent man gives me a boarding pass without a seat assignment. Not good. Bump possibility is high when this happens. "It let me buy the upgrade, though, and charged me?" I quized him. Sorry. You'll have to deal with that with the gate agent, who can arrange for a refund. Huh? Just do it here, I thought. But there wasn't time. At the gate, a bunch of us had these no-seat-assignment tickets. In fact, more than there were seats on the plane, it turned out. I told the gate agent about my upgrade problem, and her high tech solution: She wrote with a sharpie on my receipt I shared with her "refund credit card" and took down my address to MAIL me a refund receipt. The time it took to do that I am certain was greater than just doing the transaction live! Who makes this stuff up! So, I get on the plane, and they are turning people around, the flight attendant yelling at the gate agent, who had followed us down, to stop sending all these people down, "We're out of seats!!" Two poor ladies, left over from the night before and frazzled actually got in the plane before being told they couldn't get on the plane. So, close . . . but so far away. That was just cruel! Ends up, there was one business class seat left, which hadn't been assigned for some reason . . . they were torn about what to do for a second, with all of us vying for one seat and already in the plane. Oooo oooo oooo, I know why!!! That's the upgrade you charged me for. Just give me that seat and skip the whole reversing of my credit card transaction, I quickly suggested. "Good deal," said the gate agent, as I got to sit in the cushy seat as the rest of the poor suckers had to get off the plane and wait.

I got mine returning tonight, though, as the day of storms on the east coast caused the feared summer ATL airport baglog. You can tell when it happens, too. People lying all over the floors very soon after you enter the airport, stuck in this travel limbo state. My flight's delay meant I got to spend a good 4 hours in the limbo, which would have driven me crazy in the past. Now, in comparison, that's not a bad delay in ATL on a stormy day, I've come to realize. It had been a while though since that happened to me, and my endurance for it is definitely down a bit.