The night before your trip, make sure that you have checked in with your airline and printed out your boarding pass. Read it carefully and note the time the plane is scheduled to take off. Do NOT rely on the email you printed out months ago when you made your reservation. Why? Because it’s possible if you are not careful that you just might, might I say, read it wrong and the time you thought the plane would be departing is actually the time that the plane is landing at your transfer point.
Then it’s possible that you might show up at the airport and not understand why the little machine won’t spit out a boarding pass for you.
Then it’s possible that the nice lady behind the ticket counter might think that you should have a “MY NAME IS ….” card on a piece of string around you because it’s clear you can’t be trusted to travel alone. Said nice lady might be able to get you on the next flight out to the transfer point with the possibility that those nice people will be able to get you on standby for your destination.
If all goes well you’ll get to the destination airport only 5 hours later than you planned and not be the worse for wear.
I’m just saying that in theory this could happen. Not that it, uh, actually did.
Old NFO is sitting next to me and I can only imagine the laugh he’ll get when he reads this. He’s a well organized, experienced traveler and will not doubt tell me that this is a rookie mistake.
Theoretically, that is.
Nope crap like that happens MORE than you know… At least you got there with a real ticket… 🙂
Not only that, I didn’t have to sit in the wheel well. Speaking of which, I see USA Today stole the idea I was going to blog about. I figure with a seat, an Oxygen mask, and heated suit, the airlines could offer seating in the wheel well. The best part being that once the plain stops at the gate, you don’t have to wait for anyone else to get off the plane.
What am I doing on this plane, and where are we headed?