My Sucky Relationship with Air Travel

above Phoenix as we flew in

I am blessed because of my mixed-ness. I'm bi-racial, multicultural in the truest form, having lived in three countries, on three continents, with family from at least 5 distinct cultures. I've experienced more culture than probably 99% of the world, and I love experiencing different cultures.

What I don't like is what is involved in getting to the places where these different cultures are. I don't like traveling. I especially don't like air travel.

In January 2003, I was flying from London to San Francisco and the turbulence on that flight was insane; when you hear fear in the flight attendant's voice as she's telling everyone to go to their seat and sit down, it's a bit scary. For the rest of the time I lived in the Bay Area, I was scared to fly (although I flew at least twice a year). Just driving by SFO on the 101 made my heart race, even if I wasn't flying anywhere.

The fear stopped in March 2010. I was flying from London to Baltimore, to see my mother for the last time. I didn't think about the flight, I thought about how my mother must have been feeling as I was flying and my fear was gone. To this day, when I have any fear of flying, I think about how this fear is nothing compared to the thought that I will never see or hear my mother again, and the fear is gone. 

But this blog isn't about that odd way to prevent fear of flying. It's about why I don't like to travel.

I've jokingly told Lauren that we have bad luck when we travel together. 

On the way to Costa Rica for our honeymoon we had to spend a night in the Dallas airport because of a tornado (we were married in December, not what people think of as tornado season). This delay had a domino effect on the rest of our trip, missing busses we had paid for, and a night's hotel stay. It sucked.

When we've taken trips around the UK, we are sure to be welcomed with heavy rain, wind, or both. I don't think we've taken a successful trip anywhere in the UK, without other people going with us. It sucks.

In the past year, I've been on 4 trips and 2 of them had really bad delays (on a third, my bags were delayed by a couple of days, but I won't get into that). Coincidentally, those were the only two trips where Lauren and I travelled together. Hmmm....

In June, for my birthday, we went to Southern Spain (I should note that we flew on my birthday, which is not ideal for me, but we were going to Spain!). The trip was great. We spent time with Lauren's parents, saw some cool stuff, got back to the airport in Malaga, to find out our flight was delayed for a couple of hours. No big deal, really. We boarded the plane, got buckled in, then the captain comes on. The flight would be delayed by 7 hours and we couldn't get off. There was an air traffic control strike in France (which we had to fly over) and so he would need to take off on short notice, if they allowed him. They didn't. We sat on the plane for 7 hours. I saw one of the flight attendants crying when I went to the bathroom. People were irate. It sucked.

This last trip, to the US, wasn't much better. I was on 4 legs on this trip (Edinburgh -San Francisco - Phoenix - Baltimore - Edinburgh). Three of the four had problems. 

First, my flight out of Edinburgh was cancelled (snow in my connecting city of Newark). I stood in line at the Edinburgh airport for a couple of hours and was re-routed and actually got to San Francisco 2 hours earlier than I would have. Mind you, I got a crappy seat on a 10-hour flight and couldn't get a vegetarian meal on the 10-hour flight, but it actually ended up for the best. It didn't suck. I should note that Lauren wasn't with me on this leg of the trip.

Flying from San Francisco to Phoenix was fine. After hearing of my travel woes, my co-worker said that's why the West Coast is the Best Coast. Based on this trip, it was. Clearly.

Flying from Phoenix to Baltimore was fine until about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to land. We were flying low, but not low enough and it seemed rocky and we were circling but not getting lower. After about 15 min of this, the captain came on and told us the wing flaps weren't opening. That's not exactly what you want to hear as you're in a plane that is about to land. He ended by saying "but it shouldn't affect the landing". What?!?! I tend to think wing flaps are pretty important to landing a plane and the issue was already affecting the landing. We should have landed by the time he made the announcement.

We had to continue on this very slow, rocky, circling descent to land at BWI. Lauren got really bad motion sickness; I thought we might crash; but we (eventually) made it back to land. It was scary, and it sucked.

Getting from Baltimore to Edinburgh was an ordeal. Looking ahead a few days, I saw that we would be in a window between a snow storm that had hit the east coast and the 'Polar Vortex' (I should say I hate the phrase 'polar vortex' more than I hate flying). We would be fine, I thought. 

We got to the airport, checked in. There was a slight delay, we were told. No big deal. Then the delay got longer, and longer. There was talk that it was because Newark (where we had to connect) was overwhelmed with air traffic so the delay was for our benefit, so we wouldn't be circling forever. There was talk that the 'polar vortex' was the cause of the delay, even though neither city would be feeling it for the next couple of days. The plane was ready to go, the crew was there, then the truth came out. There was no pilot. It sucked.

I think the pilot was in a city that was affected by the 'polar vortex' and so our plane was a no-go. 

You would think a stranded pilot would be enough to cancel the flight with enough notice so people could use other means to get from Baltimore to Newark (it's a 3-hour train ride), but United Airlines waited until 2 1/2 hours after we were supposed to take off. If we had known the pilot was not around a lot of us with international connecting flights could have made it to Newark early enough to make our connections. As it was though, very few were able to make their connections. The earliest they could get us to Edinburgh was 4 days later. This really sucked.

The customer service we received in Baltimore compared to when my flight was cancelled in Edinburgh was markedly different. Baltimore United Airlines staff should take note from their Edinburgh counterparts, where things were dealt with in a much calmer and efficient manner. 

There was no evidence that they would pay for a hotel (luckily we were staying with my dad), or give us any kind of food voucher (we were at the airport for over 6 hours without any kind of information). For this last leg of our trip, I completely blame United Airlines. 

When I posted about this 4-day delay on Facebook, someone said I was lucky that I got to travel the world. I definitely realize just how lucky I am and I  and I don't want to take that luck for granted. But I can't wait until the teleportation stations start to open. Although, knowing my luck, I'd have to take a plane to get to one.