You want to know what is currently #1 in my list of Things That Piss Me Off About Air Travel? It’s the person in the check-in line who for no apparent reason takes 20 minutes to check in! I mean, what could possibly take so long? Are they booking new tickets? Are they estimating legroom in every available seat?
This sort of thing happens to me just about every time I fly, but having never been the 20 minuter myself, I don’t actually know what is going on up there. Anyone have any ideas? And for that matter, if it is something particularly complicated, why doesn’t the airline send the person to another desk, specializing in clueless time wasters, so that the rest of can get on with our lives and proceed to the eagerly-awaited cavity search?
You know what gets me? People who refer to this fine town of Knoxvegas as Knoxburg, even if that’s just in the location field.
…checking mapquest to make sure there’s not really a Knoxburg before I post this, not wanting to look like an idiot today. Odd thing is, Mapquest comes up with results - but zooming in brings up Old Fort Parkway in Murfreesboro.
I listen to them make the announcement about the number and size of carry-on bags permitted. I never see them check. And unless all the overhead bins are full, I never see them make folks check their bags. Meanwhile, we sit and sit and sit while passengers drag multiple oversized parcels down the narrow aisles, whacking all in their wake.
Checking bags isn’t hard. It makes travel so much nicer - no struggling with crap in the overhead, a little extra room under the seat in front of you, ease of entry and egress. Plus you’re delayed maybe 15 minutes waiting at the carousel? Time to make a potty stop and stroll leisurely to baggage claim.
I always seem to be behind the guys who are trying to check as luggage a black plastic garbage bag with duct tape wrapped around it. Or a big cardboard box with rope tied to it. And the counter lady just can’t get the point across that “This just isn’t going to work.”
which reminds me, do laptops count as our one carryon handbag, or are you allowed another in addition? I am never quite sure, so whenever I check in, I sling my backpack conspicuously over my shoulder, while I subtly "conceal’ my laptop between my knees!
“Laptop? No, kneebetween.”
As far as I know, a laptop is allowed in addition to one carry-on. It may be that a particularly large laptop case may count as your carry-on, though. Some of them get fairly fat.
I’ll tell you what absolutely pisses the crap outta me about one particular airline… but this thread should really be moved to The Pit first I’ll be back…
To the OP, most of the time the ‘20 minuters’ you are talking about are needing some obscure transaction done that the Ticket Agent has never done (or it’s been a year since). The only interface they have for these things is a bulky Command Line Interface with commands like s$1428/06 a34cx256.
If you can only imagine the horror of trying to remember those damn things.
My biggest pet peeves with Air Travel are all related to the beleagured and often obsessive security measures.
Our beloved Alaska Airlines has now imposed a strict 50 lb limit per bag. Not an ounce over. So if you show up with a bag weighing 52 pounds, which my wife did recently, you have to unpack something and either leave it behind or try to stuff it in your carryon. Additionally, they are now starting to charge people for those crapulent meals they serve on board, which is probably good for an entire pit thread of itself.
I had a two hour gat hold at Denver once because of weather in LA. Riiiiiiiiiight weather in LA. Suuuuuuuuuuure.
then we got on approach. I did not believe that a plane that big could move in so many different directions all at once.
The passengers were divided up this way
1/3 :eek:
1/3 :mad:
1/3 :rolleyes: (this color anyway)
This trip proved the old saying
It is much better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.
I sympathise, OP’er. I also wonder what the hell these people are trying to do that takes a counterperson 30 minutes to accomplish.
Invariably, I will stand in line and notice a person taking a long time to get bags checked, etc. I will always pass at least one or two people that have been standing at the counter since I entered the line 30 minutes and 4 doglegs behind them. What are they doing??
Air travel is quite common in the modern world - is it not that hard to plan ahead to make it from Galveston to Butte, MT? There are at least a dozen websites that will do it for you, and travel agents still exist to make arrangements. What exactly are those people who take an hour to get through trying to accomplish? Please, let us know, lest we be forced to mock you further.
P.S. This happens just as often at 6:30 AM flights from Denver to Salt Lake City as it does on 7:30 PM flights to London.
And what’s with him having to go to work to babysit the planes when there’s a hurricane? Like a 240 lb man is really going to be able to hold the plane(s) down from getting blown about in a storm if it’s that bad out.