Light Blue Taxi

Travel Date:     February 17, 2008

Origin:               Phoenix, AZ (PHX)

Destination:    Los Angeles (LAX)

Airline:              US Airways

Flight:               USAirways 29

I was (un)fortunate enough to add a new experience to my flying adventures today on a trip back from Phoenix.  After spending a nice weekend with my father playing golf and touring Scottsdale, my girlfriend and I flew back on a US Airways flight that I knew would be trouble before the weekend even began.  But first we had to get to Scottsdale.

Unfortunately, on the Friday morning of our outbound flight, Katie woke up with a sinus infection after having a cold the previous week.  While she was troubled by the pressure in the morning, as an experienced sinus infection traveler, I knew the pain in store for her that evening and set about immediately to try prevent as much of it as possible.  The pain of a serious sinus infection on a flight could bring the toughest of men to their knees and would be enough for me to consider cancelling any trip.  Fortunately, Katie is a trooper (and had also not experienced such a flight before), so she insisted we continue on. 

After a morning at the pharmacy, we sat on the runway for 30 minutes while Phoenix underwent “flow control”.  Apparently this is initiated in Phoenix when there is more than one cloud in the sky.  The ascent to 35k feet (I know, quite high for such a short flight, right?) seemed almost too easy.  Only our knees were in pain from the 31″ length economy boxes we were forced into.  But then came the drop below the cloud cover and it wasn’t until 15k feet before Katie’s ears popped again, saving her from what would have been sure tears had the pressure built up from another 5-10k foot drop.

Hoping that would be the extent of the pain we fed her meds all weekend and cleared up the pressure.  It seemed almost too good.  But on the flight from Phoenix to LA, the decent again proved painful.  This time, although the sinus pressure was not as bad, her ears did not clear until we were actually walking off the plane into Terminal 1 in LAX.  Yes!  Her ears were clear and we made it off the flight.  As long as our golf bag was there, we would be free.

Of course, Terminal 1 turned out to be the unanticipated roadblock of the trip.  We were about half way out the terminal when we noticed a massive throng of people heading our way.  After trying to walk through them briefly, someone mentioned we couldn’t get out the exit and that we had to turn around.  Eventually we noticed the security and police ushering everyone back towards us and realized there would be no immediate exit from Terminal 1.  We turned back, found a place to stand, and waited for more info.

Of course, the LAX security is about as organized as the baseball steroids scandal: the general public does not know anything, those who do keep quiet, and everyone (including people on the other end of cell phones) and their mom have to offer their opinion on what is happening and what should be done.  Seeing as there are several thousand intercom announcements daily in the airport, one would think that they could use the intercom to help explain what was going on past the police line holding us back.  Or even perhaps just a bullhorn or yelling.  But no, we were offered very little information while we were stuck there for over an hour. 

From all the rumors, chatter, questions, and phone calls, eventually we figured out that there was a “threat” outside of the security gate that consisted of a security breach.  We had noticed that the flights were on “Orange” threat level earlier that day, so I imagine that the threat was taken very seriously.  The security breach required shutting down Terminal 1 security line, which barricaded off us from exiting the terminal.  Apparently Terminal 1 is seen as the primary entry/exit point, so all other terminals had to be secured and shut down as well.

What the “threat” was, we never found out.  However, when we were finally released from our captivity and grabbed my golf back from baggage (thank god it was still there), we stumbled onto hundreds of police cars still outside.  Police were everywhere, lines were miles long out the door and nobody was moving anywhere.  We saw snipers on the roof of the opposing parking garages as well.  It was pretty intense.

In the end, I was not worried about any sort of security threat.  Maybe this was the point of them not telling us anything all along.  Or, perhaps that is what is happening with the extreme-emphasized protection put in since 9/11 that is now calling for a “boy who cried wolf scenario”.  We have seen so many threats now that the public is unfortunately frustrated when they are kept at bay, rather than accepting this fate in a post 9/11 world.  Fortunately, there has not been much public outcry against these frustrations.  While I was not worried about the security threat today, I was also not nearly ready to complain to anyone about being held at bay, away from any potential “threat” or security breach while we are at “Orange” threat level.

Rather than post another depressing story this week, I thought I would mix it up and add in some helpful travel links.

• SeatGuru.com is a great site for figuring out what is the best seat to request when booking your flight.
• TripLife comes from Derek on how to find seats next to people that you actually may want to meet (say, for potential business or love interests), rather than taking the seat lottery as assigned to you by the airline.

Travel Date:     February 12, 2007

Origin:               Albuquerque, NM (ABQ)

Destination:    Los Angeles (LAX)

Airline:              Southwest

Flight:               Southwest 1259

The Story:

I had been skiing all weekend in Taos, New Mexico, which at the base of the mountain has an altitude of roughly 10,000 feet.  Of course, with the cold weather, I had developed a bit of a sniffle and my nose was not in the best shape by the end of the weekend.

After a two hour drive from the mountain back down to Albuquerque at 5,000 ft, I got aboard the Southwest flight for what I was hoping would be a quick, relaxing trip back to LA.  The gods of the air were again not so nice.

On takeoff my nose started bleeding violently.  I rarely get nosebleeds and this shocked me as much as the passenger besides me.  Of course, the timing was about as poor as it could possibly be.  We literally were barely lifting our wheels off the ground when the bleeding began.

Being in no position to get up and run to the toilet, I searched desperately for napkins or anything to stuff in there to stop the bleeding.  In the end, my brother, sitting across the aisle, found one tissue that I went through in about 5 seconds, and I had to resort to the glossy pages of the Southwest Airlines magazine.  To say this paper absorbed a single drop would be an overstatement.

Takeoff usually takes at least 10-15 minutes.  I sat there, bleeding on myself for at least 8 of them before I was able to get up and run to the bathroom.  This was still prior to the seat-belt sign coming off and the flight attendant almost told me to go back to my seat until she saw my hands, face, and shirt. 

Twenty minutes later I emerged from the bathroom without a drop of blood of me.  Of course my shirt was soaked from the cleaning I just gave it in the dirtiest of all bathrooms.

The rest of the flight went fine and although I was scared to death about the landing, I was prepared to battle any attacks caused by the altitude change with a 4-inch stack of cocktail napkins.

The worst part about this disaster story is that there is almost nothing that can be learned from this situation.  The only thing I can think of is to maybe always carry a tissue.  And perhaps to not always be so abiding by that little seat-belt light that holds me so firmly in place.

Travel Date:     May 11, 2007

Origin:               Los Angeles (LAX)

Destination:    Tokyo (NRT)

Airline:              ANA (All Nippon Airways)

Flight:               ANA 005

The Story:

This flight to Tokyo took a  turn for the worse once the first meal of the trip was served.  This situation did not in fact affect me, but rather the entire plane.

I did not notice what was wrong at first.  I was lucky enough to be sitting in Business Class, so I was not as close to the rest of the passengers as usual.  But towards the end of the meal, the flight attendant came to me and asked if the butter tasted funny because they had received a few complaints.  I replied that it did not, but then realized that I had yet to use any butter (I’m not a big butter fan).  So, I lightly buttered some bread and took a bite.  It did not taste horrible, but it did taste slightly different than what I was used to at home.  I let the flight attendant know that it tasted slightly different, finished my meal, and went back to sleep.

An hour or so later, I spoke with the flight attendant again and she mentioned that some people had gotten sick from the butter.  I was nervous the rest of the flight, even though I did not eat any more butter than the one bite I had taken as a test.  In retrospect, testing if the food is bad by trying it and seeing if I get sick, is probably not the most intelligent way to test anything.

I ended up not getting sick, but the whole event threw me for a loop and I recorded it in my air travel notes.  The impressive turn to came on my return flight, when the flight attendant came to me directly, just as I sat down, and addressing me by both names apologized for my previous flight and asked if I had any sickness problems after getting off the plane.  Either ANA is extremely diligent or they had some serious butter problems that led to serious sicknesses.  I will never know, but they did treat me quite well on the flight home. 

Two weeks later, in the mail, I received this apology letter from ANA: 

“We regret that you experienced a sense of discomfort with the whipped butter served on ANA Flight 005 from Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita on May 11th.

We have ordered the caterer to immediately investigate the issue, and found out that during the production of this whipped butter, they have put in more heavy cream than stated in the recipe, causing the cheese-like smell.  At the same time, we have sent the butter samples to certified laboratories, and received confirmation that there was no sign of deterioration, and consuming this product would not cause any harm to the human body.”

This is something I can truly say I have never received from any other airline for any of the other horrible travel situations I have had in the past.  All in all, it was a weird situation, but I managed to live for another flight.

My first Light Blue Taxi post will be one of an upbeat nature.  They will not always be this great.  I will be slowly posting stories of mine over the years from my air travels, most of which are some form of complete disaster.

I will work to put a better format together, but just to get the site running, I wanted to get a quick post up.

Recently, I flew back from Seattle to LA.  The United evening flight was quite smooth and we did not have any problems checking in, with baggage, seats, etc.   The biggest news of the trip was that the lady came through and gave us two sets of peanuts, not just one.  Rarely have I seen such service in Economy Plus class.  The worst part of the trip was that we were flying on Christmas Eve.  We did not have much of a choice, but sometimes having to fly at specific times can be just as bad as a bad flight itself.