We’ve been traveling for the last two weeks and therefore haven’t been posting anything. Regular articles will now resume. The description below depicts our long journey home.
I’ve written several times about the parlous state of air travel in the United States, but nothing since the COVID meltdown. The reason is simple. I’ve avoided the airlines. As the memory for pain is short, and as I’ve ventured no more than 350 miles from home since the start of the COVID catastrophe, I decided without regard to risk to take a trip that began and ended in Miami. This choice required that I place myself under the Vulture’s death ray. In case you’re not familiar with the scavenger it’s a regional airline that operates under the aegis of a larger carrier.
The trip from Lubbock went smoothly as it often does, as it takes time for the Vulture to melt down. Morning flights often go well. I’ll focus on the return, which is when routine breakdowns occur.
Our departure from Miami was delayed as the incoming flight originated in Quito, Ecuador. That the Vulture is now international may signal the breakdown of what little order is left in the world. The plane arrived in plenty of time to allow an on-time departure were it from a domestic city. But as I found out, incoming flights from foreign sites require a detailed security check. Explosive sniffing dogs were turned loose on the plane. Round crawling machines that looked like iRobot Roombas slithered through the interior while similar gadgets caterpillared the plane’s exterior. They looked like giant bedbugs. After about an hour, the all-clear was given and the usual slow-walking of the boarding process was permitted to begin.
We had booked a 50-minute connection from the parent carrier to the Vulture. As it is always late, we felt this relatively brief span was sufficient. Consulting the carrier’s app was reassuring as it showed the incoming flight from Little Rock was delayed by increasing amounts every time the app was reconsulted. Finally, the Vulture schedulers realized that the pilot of the now three hour late flight had defected to Canada and substituted a plane that was already at DFW. My flight had become so delayed that it had morphed into an alternate time space such that it was now on time.
We were now like a weather forecast, we had a 30% chance of making the flight. Of course, our chance was either zero or 100%. We had not only been hit by a time warp, but we had also encountered the only Vulture flight in aviation history to depart DFW to Lubbock on time, leaving us with our noses pressed against a sign saying “Boarding Closed.” I received an email stating that we had been booked on a flight scheduled to depart at 9:07, which was four hours from then.
We might have made the divinely reinstated on-time flight had the Sky Link worked as intended. The Sky Link is a rickety people mover now more than 20 years old that transports anybody who can wiggle through a security system at any domestic airport connecting to DFW or who can brave DFW’s hometown check-in process. It’s supposed to take no more than 9 minutes to take a traveller from the two most distant terminals. Our Vulture terminal was only three stops away.
At the second stop we were told: “Stand Clear, the train is about to depart.” Nothing happened. After a succession of such warnings the passenger began to turn on those near the door thinking they were triggering the safety device designed to prevent the doors from closing if someone was not entirely within the car. A few fistfights broke out. When I thought I saw a knife that had escaped security detection, I pressed the emergency phone that happened to be next to me.
I waited for a response, and I waited, etc. The telephone was inert and silent, while the doors were insistent though equally unmovable. I guess our stranded situation was not deemed sufficiently emergent to elicit a response from the phone. After an indecent interval, motion resumed, and I reached the departure gate in time to be late.
The only way to pass the four hours before by new flight was to go the the Admirals Club. It was about 20 gates away. As I staggered in its direction, an elderly man wielding a wheelchair placed me in it and pushed me, clutching my carry-on bag in my lap, to the distant sanctuary. Had he not materialized, I would have had to crawl the 20 gates that separated me from the club.
Once inside, a new problem materialized. The place was set to the temperature of an igloo. I asked one of the attendants at the club’s entrance if they could turn down (or is it up?) as the Dallas outside temperature was in the 50s. They said that the AC was beyond their control and that it was on come blizzard or avalanche, as the windows in the place were permanently sealed.
Resigned to shiver my way through the next four hours, I decided to pass the time by recharging my phone. There were numerous outlets near many of the chairs that were there for that purpose – none of them worked. I unplugged a light lamp and successfully rejuvenated my phone. It told me that the departure gate had changed from 21 to 25. Then it announced that the plane was one hour late. A little while later, the gate had changed two more times, and the flight was now two hours late. Then the flight, from Little Rock, was estimated to depart in a week. Finally, the Vulture conceded and announced that a new plane originating from Mérida in the Yucatan would take the place of the Arkansas laggard at Gate 21.
As my earlier flight had originated outside the US, I knew this one would undergo the same scrutiny and could never meet the departure time that had been restored to 9:07. At a time appropriate for the mythical departure time, I headed to Gate 21. Halfway there, I was informed that the gate had been changed to 3, which was where I had started from.
I was also told that while I had not made the earlier flight home, my bags had and were there waiting for me. I realized that while the bags were in Lubbock, they would not be waiting for me, but rather behind a locked door.
After waiting for the security check to be completed and for the flight attendants to clear immigration, we boarded the plane about 40 minutes after the announced departure time. We were all set to go when the co-pilot realized we were missing the pilot. I feared that he too had defected to Canada, but he eventually showed up as nonchalant as a Vulture captain can be.
We finally arrived at Lubbock about seven hours later than planned. As this was my first visit to the airport since its ongoing expansion, I was surprised to discover that Gate 1 was at least a half mile from baggage claim. Of course, the Vulture parked at Gate 1, though all the others were vacant. There was no good Samaritan with a wheelchair chair so I lurched to where I knew my bags would not be. They weren’t, another hike to the Vulture’s counter where nobody was in attendance. There was a locked door that blocked the room containing bags divorced from their owner, but no one was around to open it.
Defeated, I went straight to the ER and requested euthanasia. I was told my insurance didn’t cover it and that I should go to Switzerland. But that final trip required another Vutlure flight, making dying a fate worse than death.
