So, here I sit, writing this out on my iBook, earplugs firmly in place, soaring over the eastern U.S. on our way to Brussels.
Brussels? Yeah, Brussels.
See, today hasn’t exactly gone so well in terms of travel. The morning was alright. Lisa’s mom dropped us off at the airport at around 3:45am. Our flight was scheduled for 6am, so we were attempting to get there a couple of hours early.
Delta’s counter didn’t open up until 4:30am, so we basically just stood there, first in line, ready to go.
In the process of checking in, we were told that for the larger leg of our flight (Atlanta to Paris) that we wouldn’t be seated together, but rather, one behind the other in the middle of the plane. Not liking that situation, we asked the agent what she recommended. She said we should drop the seats and just check in once we arrived in Atlanta. Based on her advice, we did just that, and headed towards Comida Buena — the only food place open at the hour — and got some croissant sandwiches (you’d think based on the name, there’d be burritos, but no).
The flight from Albuquerque to Atlanta was pretty uneventful. We touched down at around 8:45am MDT (10:45 local time, EDT). We were actually early, and had to wait for another plane to leave the gate before we could taxi up and deplane.
Once in the airport, we found the gate for the flight to Paris, and were told to come back later, once the agents for the flight were there, in order to get a seat. We’d seen a TGI Friday’s on the way to our gate, so we backtracked and had a decent lunch.
Heading back around 1:00pm, I got in line for the flight before there was anyone there, just to make sure I was first. Trying to ensure a seat and all, y’know.
Once an agent showed up, we were informed that there were absolutely no seats. In effect, the agent in Albuquerque had us give up our flight. We were on the list in case something opened up, but that simply wasn’t to be. We sat there until 3:35pm waiting for a seat, only to be told that they’d oversold the flight drastically and there was nothing we could do about it. There was a 5:35pm Paris flight but it was already well oversold as well.
I understand the reasoning behind overselling flights and all, but it really does seem like a bad business practice in a number of ways.
So, we went and stood in line at a ticket counter. It felt like forever until we got someone, and then forever again waiting on him to find us a flight. Eventually, he found us a connection through Brussels, Belgium. The flight out was scheduled to take off at 5:40pm, and we’d be landing at around 8:30am local time (GMT+1, would feel like roughly 12:30am to us). The flight didn’t actually pick up until around 6:00pm, but we’re told we’ve got a nice tailwind and even with the delay, we’ll be landing around 20 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Then, we’ve got about an hour and a half there until we board a flight for Paris.
We’ve got nearly eight hours on this flight — one has passed so far, and since I’ve got the laptop and we have books and such, I imagine the rest of the time won’t be too bad. Drink service has started, after which there’ll be dinner. It actually sounds like dinner may be half decent.
I’m gonna wrap this up for now. The guy sitting in front of me is bouncing in his seat and it’s moving my screen funny. More updates soon!