Home again

I made it home to Auckland. My suitcases, however, didn't.

I set out extra early on Monday (Chicago time). After the horrendous lines at the United Airlines check-in at LAX, I thought allowing a LOT more time would be a good idea. I also hoped to get booked on an earlier flight. However, the check-in went so quickly, it was all done before I knew what happened.

I had plenty of time to kill. I had a coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. Then I made a couple phone calls to friends I didn't get to see and read the papers. I decided to go buy a water, and then checked the departures monitor to see if my gate had changed. I was shocked to find out the flight was delayed two and a half hours! Many other flights were delayed or cancelled. However, since I only had an hour and a half between flights, this meant I'd miss my flight to Auckland, and there's only one a day from San Francisco.

So, off I went to United's Customer “Service” area and joined the queue. Two hours later (no, I'm NOT exaggerating!) I finally got to an agent who re-booked me on a flight to Los Angeles (my beloved LAX) where I could catch a different Air New Zealand flight. Great. He said he'd re-book my bags and they'd be on the same plane as me (I'd booked them through to Auckland). I was worried, however, when he asked me to describe them.

I waited, and the plane started boarding slightly late, then waited until a family of four boarded late. We left nearly twenty minutes late. Nearing L.A., the pilot announced that “headwinds were stronger than we expected” and the plane would land “about” a half hour late.

Once off the United plane (and a tired, tatty thing it was, too), I raced through the terminal to get outside. This was no easy task since, in typical LAX fashion, there were few directional signs and no maps at all. It took nearly 20 minutes to escape the hell of that terminal.

Once outside I set off for Terminal 2, only to find out that there was no direct way to walk, though, yet again, a sign or map could have made that possible. I raced back to wait for the shuttle bus. I waited, and waited and waited. In all, it took nearly 45 minutes to get from United's gate to Terminal 2.

Once there, I found that Air New Zealand had assumed a lady and I were no-shows and had closed check-in. They got us on, and I raced to the gate.

Of course, it wasn't that simple.

First, I had to go outside to come back in again (!) to get to the TSA security area. It was totally shambolic as they herded two lines of shoeless people through one metal detector. The grim-faced, bored TSA agents didn't do much spot checking. No US authorities looked at my passport, aside from a brief glance from a TSA drone who checked only that my passport name matched the boarding pass. As far as the US passport people are concerned, I guess I'm still in the US.

Anyway, I got to the gate and found lots of people standing around waiting to board. I guessed that general boarding hadn't started. I heard an announcement being made, though it was impossible to make out what they were saying, so I jumped in line, since my seat was near the back of the plane.

Once I finally got on the Air New Zealand plane, I nearly cried, because I was so happy, especially because not long before then it looked like I'd miss another flight home.

The flight back was long, uneventful, but on a nice, clean, newer plane in good condition. The flight attendants were friendly, engaged and efficient, at least two of which were missing from the “service” I received from United staff. Actually, more often than not, all three were missing. The flight landed ten minutes early. That didn't surprise me at all.

In Auckland, I went to the baggage claim area and waited, probably longer than I should have (hope springs eternal and all that), before I went to “baggage services” to report my missing bags. I took one look at the huge queue, and rang Nigel on my cellphone. “It'll be at least an hour to hour and a half,” I told him, based on the other recent queues I'd been in.

After around five minutes of waiting and little line movement, two Air New Zealand staff members emerged, handed out forms and helped us fill them in. I looked up after I was done with mine and—no exaggeration—the entire line was gone! If United had people helping like this in Los Angeles, I wouldn't have been waiting two hours.

The Air New Zealand agent took me aside to log the report right then, since I was the victim of “disrupted flight”, or something like that. She said she thought my bags would arrive tomorrow on the same flight I was on, they'd arrange customs clearance and deliver them to my house. Yes, well, considering the mixed-up itinerary, that may be a tad optimistic.

I went out and met Nigel about two and half hours after I landed. We went home where we talked and I had a coffee (I was really hanging out for a coffee by then) and Nigel a tea. I had a shower and we went out to lunch, which was really nice in every sense. Ordinary life, in other words, returning at last.

And that's it so far—except that I washed some underwear to tide me over until my suitcases come home. I'll say more about my trip and observations of the US in a later post, and my podcast returns next week. In the meantime, I'll just say that there really is no place like home.