Sleepless ... but not in Soho yet

OK, I just have to get this rant off my chest, because, well, I'm stuck here in an airport for another six or eight hours, and I paid $8 to have wifi access.

One would think (or at least up till yesterday, I thought) that in the 21st century, getting from California to London would be no big deal. I had a wide assortment of itineraries to choose from when I went online to buy a ticket a few weeks ago, so I picked the one that looked most convenient: fly out of the little airport that's five minutes from my house, pick up the big jet in LA and 10 or so hours later, boom, you're at Heathrow. Yeah, that was the theory.

Turns out all the aircraft flying out of Our Fair City come from somewhere else -- in this case, foggy old San Francisco. So no little plane to take me to LAX, no big jet to Heathrow. After some wrangling with the ticket agent(s), including a tantalizing moment when she thought she could get me on first class on a flight later in the afternoon, I was rerouted "the hard way." As in, OFC to LAX to Ohare to Dulles to London. Call it my little tour of the biggest and busiest airports in America.

So I come back to the little airport yesterday evening, kiss the kids goodbye again. Had a minor heart attack when the board showed my flight leaving at about the same time as the flight I was supposed to connect to. Turns out the board was cranky and the flight was only a few minutes delayed. Had a nice walk from one terminal to another in LA to stretch my legs before the red-eye to Chicago. Slept fitfully and woke up with a stiff neck at what felt like 3 a.m. to find that I had 20 minutes to get off the plane and make it over to the next terminal for the next leg of the adventure. Which I did, OJ-style. Well, I didn't exactly jump over anything, but I did make this rather out-of-shape carcass move a bit faster than it's used to. I was still trying to catch my breath on the plane when the pilot announces that there's some minor mechanical malfunction that must be investigated, replaced, etc. This flight has the same number as the eventual flight to London, but it turns out different aircraft are involved and the "company" decides it isn't worth holding the London flight for 20 minutes so that three of us can make the connection.

So here I sit, at Dulles airport, looking at an overcast sky and bemoaning my fate. I know the airline industry is hurting these days, but from where I sit, so are it's customers.

OK, I'm done with the gripe session. Next time a customer insists on hands-on assistance, I'm going to really make them justify it!