Travel stories/nightmares

[BigMacHusker]

This one isn't a nightmare, but it just happened today and I feel the need to tell the story on the internets and pretend like something will get fixed. Flight from Wichita to Denver was delayed an hour and a half due to weather. We land at DIA and shockingly our gate is taken. There is an open gate a couple down and the pilot mentions he is trying to "negotiate" that but it is not easy. After 10-15 minutes (I was watching the clock) he pulls into the open gate. The attendant opens the door and we hear "we don't have a ramp" (it is a small regional jet, an Embraer). We sit there another 25 minutes as I watch the plane next to us finish boarding and they fumble to get that ramp over to us. As we leave the plane and go to walk inside, we walk by two ramps on the other side of the plane sitting there unused. I heard a couple passengers say they had missed their connections due to the extra time waiting for the ramp. The lack of commonsense and initiative with TSA and some other airport personnel is pretty amazing at times.

Just to be provocative, I'm pretty sure DIA is unionized.

Probably a good time of year to hear some good stories.

[Nishioka]

Just to be provocative, I'm pretty sure DIA is unionized.

It's far, far more sinister than you think.



That said, the weirdest airport story I have was getting through security at Shin-Chitose Airport in Japan. I didn't have to take my belt off, I didn't have to take my shoes off, didn't have to pull my laptop out of my bag, didn't have to submit to an invasive scanner or an "enhanced" patdown - I just walked right through the metal detector!

(Also, I broke up a fight between an airport employee and a hotel shuttle driver outside the airport in San Francisco once. That was weird.)