· United with who ... not the passengers!Los Angeles, USA · 4th Oct 2008 · Posted by Chris
After the flight was majorly delayed in Taipei things started to get interesting. We got on on the flight to head to L.A. and, when food was being served, were told that they'd run out of everything but seafood! Annie and I
don't eat seafood so unfortunately this didn't seem like a good sign of things to come. Thankfully the flight attendant went up to Business Class and brought us a couple of their meals. Score!
We both actually managed something close to 8 hours sleep on the almost 12 hour flight which is pretty awesome all things considered. Getting to L.A. was good, we got our bags and figured out where to leave them so that they'd get to Toronto on the same flights as us.
Hmmm what flights? Our flight from L.A. to Chicago was cancelled. Great. We then got put on standby for a different flight leaving that night but didn't manage to get seats so had to stand in line at the United counter for frickin' AGES while everyone else vented their frustration at the United people too. United ... man, they're possibly the worst airline either of us have ever flown. In the queue we were chatting to a couple who said United sucks and we just smiled and nodded but they were right for sure. Thankfully they put us up in a the Marriott Hotel for the night - not bad. While at the hotel we managed to find a sports bar that served dinner up until 1 a.m. and we ate with an Indian-American guy (Indian as in curry, not Navajo) and a really really nice African-American girl named Jenna who is hoping to commence medical school shortly. We had a really interesting conversation about politics etc - hearing the opinions of people who live in the U.S. is very different to what you hear on T.V. We managed about 1.5 hours sleep after that and headed back to L.A.X to get our flight to Chicago.
The photo below is what United thinks of themselves. We were going to modify it to reflect our own feelings but thought that might be dodgy so here's the original. We'll just settle by saying YEAH RIGHT.
Hahaha check out the caption ... yeah right!!!
Again, we ask ... what flight? That one ended up being delayed by just enough time that meant we were gonna miss our connection to Toronto from Chicago. We'd had just about enough at this point, standing in line YET AGAIN trying to get them to put us on an earlier flight. The United staff simply didn't seem interested in helping us, including one woman (I won't call her lady for good reason) who ignored all Annie's questions and just said "You have to go and ask over there." Annie had just come from "over there"! While waiting in the boarding lounge we overheard United staff chatting about how not enough staff had shown up to a flight so they cancelled it. How does an airline that doesn't have enough staff to cater for flights that hundreds of people are relying on and have already paid for even stay in business? Come on! That's just stupid. We also chatted to a whole load of different people including an elderly couple who were trying to get on their flights to Frankfurt as they were trying to make a connection to somewhere in the Caribbean so they could get on a 12-day cruise. Very nice! Unfortunately that was probably to prove a little difficult as United has lost their bags. Come on, how hard can it be to get this stuff right? Grrr!
Luckily this time Annie managed to twist the staff member's arm enough to put us on a flight leaving 20 minutes after our scheduled one so with about 2 minutes to spare we raced to the different gate and boarded our new flight to Chicago.
---- ----
When we got on this new flight to Chicago we were so relieved, things were finally starting to look up. But we weren't sitting together and that kinda sucked. We were sitting one row behind one another, right in the middle of the middle row of 3 seats. The best seats on the planet. Really.
However, I was far more interested in something else. I was sitting next to a very nice old lady who seemed to have a friend sitting on the aisle seat next to her. They were chatting, as old ladies do. I noticed at one point that the other old lady started waving a piece of paper at a bag under the seat in front of her, as if she was trying to keep it cool. I thought that was a bit odd. Until I noticed that the bag was kinda a mesh bag... with something inside it... something kinda orange... maybe even a bit ginger coloured... something very much resembling a... CAT! Yup, a cat. And as I turned around to point this out to Chris, I noticed that the lady sitting right next to me had one too! WHAT?? As far as I knew, all animals are meant to travel in the cargo hold. I'm sure that's what our cat Baby has always done. But somehow these ones were on board with us! Very very strange. According to the lady next to me, the ginger one had been sedated but she hadn't given anything to her one. And as we took off (and landed), this became more apparent as the poor kitty (called "Coco") got a bit scared and started meeeeooowwwing. Those really long and elongated meeeeoowwws as well, coz Coco was actually a 17 year old Siamese.
Anyway, I just needed to get that out there.
---- ----
Unfortunately, this new flight got us to Chicago with about 7 minutes to run from the arrival gate all the way along the arrival terminal to our next departure gate in order to catch our flight to Toronto. And man did we run. I reckon Annie and I threatened Usain Bolt's 100m sprint record during that wee dash. We made it though, thankfully!
At the end of this flight will be Canada - finally!
don't eat seafood so unfortunately this didn't seem like a good sign of things to come. Thankfully the flight attendant went up to Business Class and brought us a couple of their meals. Score!
We both actually managed something close to 8 hours sleep on the almost 12 hour flight which is pretty awesome all things considered. Getting to L.A. was good, we got our bags and figured out where to leave them so that they'd get to Toronto on the same flights as us.
Hmmm what flights? Our flight from L.A. to Chicago was cancelled. Great. We then got put on standby for a different flight leaving that night but didn't manage to get seats so had to stand in line at the United counter for frickin' AGES while everyone else vented their frustration at the United people too. United ... man, they're possibly the worst airline either of us have ever flown. In the queue we were chatting to a couple who said United sucks and we just smiled and nodded but they were right for sure. Thankfully they put us up in a the Marriott Hotel for the night - not bad. While at the hotel we managed to find a sports bar that served dinner up until 1 a.m. and we ate with an Indian-American guy (Indian as in curry, not Navajo) and a really really nice African-American girl named Jenna who is hoping to commence medical school shortly. We had a really interesting conversation about politics etc - hearing the opinions of people who live in the U.S. is very different to what you hear on T.V. We managed about 1.5 hours sleep after that and headed back to L.A.X to get our flight to Chicago.
The photo below is what United thinks of themselves. We were going to modify it to reflect our own feelings but thought that might be dodgy so here's the original. We'll just settle by saying YEAH RIGHT.
Hahaha check out the caption ... yeah right!!!
Again, we ask ... what flight? That one ended up being delayed by just enough time that meant we were gonna miss our connection to Toronto from Chicago. We'd had just about enough at this point, standing in line YET AGAIN trying to get them to put us on an earlier flight. The United staff simply didn't seem interested in helping us, including one woman (I won't call her lady for good reason) who ignored all Annie's questions and just said "You have to go and ask over there." Annie had just come from "over there"! While waiting in the boarding lounge we overheard United staff chatting about how not enough staff had shown up to a flight so they cancelled it. How does an airline that doesn't have enough staff to cater for flights that hundreds of people are relying on and have already paid for even stay in business? Come on! That's just stupid. We also chatted to a whole load of different people including an elderly couple who were trying to get on their flights to Frankfurt as they were trying to make a connection to somewhere in the Caribbean so they could get on a 12-day cruise. Very nice! Unfortunately that was probably to prove a little difficult as United has lost their bags. Come on, how hard can it be to get this stuff right? Grrr!
Luckily this time Annie managed to twist the staff member's arm enough to put us on a flight leaving 20 minutes after our scheduled one so with about 2 minutes to spare we raced to the different gate and boarded our new flight to Chicago.
----
When we got on this new flight to Chicago we were so relieved, things were finally starting to look up. But we weren't sitting together and that kinda sucked. We were sitting one row behind one another, right in the middle of the middle row of 3 seats. The best seats on the planet. Really.
However, I was far more interested in something else. I was sitting next to a very nice old lady who seemed to have a friend sitting on the aisle seat next to her. They were chatting, as old ladies do. I noticed at one point that the other old lady started waving a piece of paper at a bag under the seat in front of her, as if she was trying to keep it cool. I thought that was a bit odd. Until I noticed that the bag was kinda a mesh bag... with something inside it... something kinda orange... maybe even a bit ginger coloured... something very much resembling a... CAT! Yup, a cat. And as I turned around to point this out to Chris, I noticed that the lady sitting right next to me had one too! WHAT?? As far as I knew, all animals are meant to travel in the cargo hold. I'm sure that's what our cat Baby has always done. But somehow these ones were on board with us! Very very strange. According to the lady next to me, the ginger one had been sedated but she hadn't given anything to her one. And as we took off (and landed), this became more apparent as the poor kitty (called "Coco") got a bit scared and started meeeeooowwwing. Those really long and elongated meeeeoowwws as well, coz Coco was actually a 17 year old Siamese.
Anyway, I just needed to get that out there.
----
Unfortunately, this new flight got us to Chicago with about 7 minutes to run from the arrival gate all the way along the arrival terminal to our next departure gate in order to catch our flight to Toronto. And man did we run. I reckon Annie and I threatened Usain Bolt's 100m sprint record during that wee dash. We made it though, thankfully!
At the end of this flight will be Canada - finally!
