I embark on my journey in as painful of a way as possible. I decided to be nice and save my boss a few bucks by choosing an itinerary with 2 layovers and an Air India flight from Newark to Paris... Air India... AIR India... 7 hours... to Paris, not India (at least I hope).
With promise of a fiasco in sight, I take-off from GRC (which should be the airport code for Gainesville Rock City). And HEY!... look who it is, UF president, Bernie Machen! Three consecutive, major, collegiate sports championships you'd think this guy would not be flying coach, but perhaps a jet in the shape of a flying Gator with the 3 championship trophies in his teeth (for bling). Anyway... seeing him made me feel good about this flight, so I knew I would make it to Charlotte.
And I did... I even made it to Newark. But a minor delay on the previous flight made me miss my Air India connection to Paris... bummer. Lucky for me, Air India ONLY services to Paris from Newark ONLY once a day, at 9:00PM. Therefore, I realize at this point I am going to have 24 hours to kill.
So me, some French dude, and an Indian dude are stuck in Arm Pit, USA - New Jersey talking to Air India, whose ticketing desk is down in the basement (no joke). These guys are arguing with Air India in a vicious, incoherent form of English that was endlessly entertaining. I just sat back and enjoyed the show. After they exhausted themselves with their rants, Air India displays some discrimination and only gives a hotel voucher to the Indian guy. Fair enough. They direct me and the French guy to speak to USAir whose flight delay is what caused our difficulties. Air India was "kind" enough to put us on STAND-BY for the flight tomorrow since it was also booked. We make our way over to USAir...
While trying find a hotel in lovely Newark, USAir gets swarmed with a plane full of angry customers displaced by a canceled flight to Pittsburgh. They did not like Pittsburgh that night. Finally, we get hooked up with in a crap dump Travelodge, where I remained until the following evening. I will spare you the rest of the details and suspense, and move on to Paris by saying I was fortunate enough to get on standby and rather in-flight enjoyed the Indian cuisine.
From all of this, not much harm was done other than I missed a day in Paris. One serious word of advice to learn from all of this: stick to main airlines for complicated itineraries (regardless of spending a few extra bucks) and factor in how many flights go to your destination per day, especially for international trips. For example, AirFRANCE would have been a wise choice for this trip (my mistake).
2 comments:
HA! You did better than I expected. Just one 24 hr lay over... However, the big airlines aren't always that much better. Me and Delta have been known to throw down in the past on several occasions.
Man, I thought our K.C. layover was brutal. I can't fathom having to kill 24 hours.
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