1800 miles, 4 states...
1800 miles, 4 states, 2 hours on the tarmac, 1 hour job interview, 20 hour day, now I’m home.
In the intervening hour, mostly spent going between concourses and hitting the Starbucks standing in line, getting a Latte and a piece of pumpkin cake and then heading off to the next plane getting there in a few minutes before the 30 minute pre-flight boarding, flight was nice, but full but quite nice and smooth despite the remnants of hurricane Ida making Charlotte, NC very rainy and wet.
Landed met with the Agency person, and had a nice lunch of Red Robin, then off to the interview still about 30 minutes early after going through 2 security stations, and got to sit in the lobby for 30 minutes.
Interview went well I thought, they ran out questions to ask because this was now the 3rd time we had talked, it was only an hour, did I really sign up to fly 1800 miles and a 20 hour day for a 1 hour interview?, at least the agency paid for the flight. Went back to the Airport was about 4 hours early finally tracked down the right concourse and gate, my flight wasn’t even on the departure screens yet it was that early, had a decent Chinese food at a fast food place in the Airport, then proceeded to the gate and found an outlet so I could recharge my laptop and mp3 player that managed to power itself on and play during lunch and the interview using half its power.
About half an hour later still 2 hours before the flight they called all the passengers waiting for the 7:15 flight up to the gate, and told us our flight was delayed because of the weather in Atlanta, and wanted to move us to the earlier flight, which was really the 5:35pm flight that was now scheduled to leave at 6:40. Well I thought okay I don’t care since I can sit in any airport, I already had an hour layover in Atlanta anyway.
So after boarding the 6:40 flight which seemed to take much longer than usual because they had to put everyone from the earlier flight and the later flight onto the plane we leave the gate, taxied to the designated waiting zone, to sit on the tarmac, for about 30 minutes, then they turn off the no electronic device sign so we can listen to our mp3’s and laptop and even cell phone because we have to wait her 15minutes more before we can get into the official take off line, then 10 minutes later they turned the signs back on because we were going to get in line for takeoff but it was just tease because after the engine test the turned the signs back off because for some reason it would be an additional 30 minutes, well to make a long story short we actually got to the takeoff line at 7:55 pm, which was 40 minutes after the originally scheduled take off time of the later flight and 2 hours and 45 minutes after we boarded the plane.
To add insult to injury when we got into the air they announced that because the flight was so short about 1 hour and 2 minutes there would be no beverage service for coach how nice, strange I have had drink service during a 30 minute flight between Milwaukee and Chicago, we were held hostage in the plane for 3 and ½ hours and they couldn’t even be bothered to bring out the drink cart, at least they did offer cups of water to those that wanted it on the flight. I think it should be a rule that the time stuck on the tarmac should be included in the flight time calculations and they should be forced to provide beverages and snacks accordingly.
Well make it to Atlanta finally the gate staff which should have been apologetic seemed to care less that the 5:32 pm flight arrived 4 hours late at 9:40pm, and could be barely bothered to check the status of my flight to Milwaukee that was supposed to leave 9:42pm, which luckily delayed to 10:20pm so I got to run through the airport to reach my flight which of course was on a different concourse from where we landed.
As hard as it is to believe the I actually got an empty seat next to me on the final leg of the flight into Milwaukee and full drink service even thought the flight was only scheduled to last 28 minutes longer than the haha 1 hour and 2 minute flight from Charlotte to Atlanta. At 11:30pm I finally arrived back in Milwaukee 18 hours and 30 minutes after I left on my journey,
Home at last, now I just have to wait to see if I get the job.
posted by jamesd_wi at Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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