More Adventures in Travel

This week I’m in the San Diego area, shooting video for a corporate client. We’re shooting interviews in three cities (Princeton, NJ and Evanston, IL are the others) that the company plans on using as part of their effort in recruiting college grads and MBA-types for their world-wide offices.

The company booked the air travel for me, and that became a bit of an adventure. First, we had the administrative error of flying me out of Philadelphia, but then returning me to Newark, NJ. Driving home after than would have been a bit of a challenge. Then we had the airport challenge.

I was booked on United, flying from Philadelphia to Denver, then changing planes there for the final part of the trip. As I usually do, I checked in at United’s web site the night before my trip, and printed a boarding pass.

When I attempted to check in at the Untied kiosk, in terminal D, I was told that I’d been switched to USAirways, and to go to terminal C to check in there. No big deal, I thought. So I walked back outside, in the hot afternoon sun, dragging my suitcase, with my backpack full of gear weighing me down.

USAirways, remarkably, had a pretty short line at the kiosks. However, once again, I was not able to check in. The customer service rep told me that I had to go back to the United counter and get paperwork from them showing that my reservation was indeed transferred, and then come on back. Oh and that plane is scheduled for 4pm, not the 4:30pm that would have been the departure time with United.

So it’s back to the hot sun hustle between terminals, deal with a United customer service trainee, and her trainer who was clearly having issues with the transaction. Then it’s back to terminal C, where the line is longer and the clock is ticking. I sort-of cut the line, but I’d been told to come right back to the counter. Finally, my papers are in order and I’m off to the security line.

What happens when you have to take several trips between terminals, in the hot sun, with plenty of stuff to carry, and under time pressure? If you’re me, you work up quite a sweat. And someone dripping sweat while going through an airport security line is probably pretty high on the list of red flag behaviors. And I got flagged. That meant full pat-down, and swabbing of all my carry-on gear.
In the end, I obviously got through. The USAirways flight was direct, non-stop, which is always a better way to fly. And although I was in a middle seat, between a father and daughter returning from Switzerland, the fact that I arrived in San Diego about 2-1/2 hours earlier than I expected made up for that inconvenience.