My bad luck with air travel

I'm at Incheon airport again, awaiting a flight to Daegu. The trip back from Massachusetts has been thankfully uneventful. The trip there was another story. I got a call from Korean airlines on Saturday night telling me that my flight from Daegu to Seoul was cancelled due to weather. It had been raining nonstop. I was frankly relieved. It's quite easy to get from Daegu to Incheon, especially one that there's an express train from the airport to Seoul station. My travel office is rigid about me flying to and from Daegu for some reason, so I always end up getting up early so that I can it around Incheon airport for four hours. There are worse places to be, but I'd rather sleep a little longer. Right now I am waiting four hours for a flight when I could be home in three on the train.

So I took the train to Incheon, trying out the new air express for the first time. It was spotless and efficient, with several smiling attendants to help me. I always want to ask these nice, English speaking customer service reps to come work for me. The Korean customer service I see in the travel industry hasn't made it to the Korean army civilians yet.

So I flew from Incheon to Narita, Japan with no problems. When I got to the gate at Narita, there was a plane at the gate. Always a good sign. Well, after our boarding time came and went, the captain got on the intercom and told us that there was an undiagnosed electrical problem with the plane, which would be delayed for some period of time. It turned out to be an hour delay, which put me in trouble for my connector. Shortly after we took off, I discovered that the screen on my aisle seat didn't work, and reluctantly moved to the back middle seat. I was next to a basketball-player-sized guy whose elbows wouldn't fit inside of his own seat area. Sigh.

When we landed in Chicago, attendants rushed me through customs and to the baggage rechecking area. Someone spent a long time scanning my bag, then sent me to the counter, where they told me my flight was cancelled due to equipment failure. There were a few more flights to Boston that day, so I decided to go on standby for one of them.

As it turned out, there were three flights cancelled for equipment problems, all United. Standby was a free-for-all, with people going from gate to gate hoping to catch a flight. I was number 38 on the standby list for an overbooked flight. I decided to cut my losses and take my confirmed flight for the following day, complete with free hotel room.

The next day, I went to the gate early to reconfirm my seat. There was no plane at the gate! I know that means trouble. Sure enough, the plane was late. A severe thunderstorm passed through and shut down air traffic for awhile. After an hour delay, we boarded. The captain told us we were twentieth in line to take off. After awhile, the engines shut off. The captain told us that a central air traffic control station was evacuated due to the weather, which had gone east, and that we were on the tarmac until further notice. About an hour later, we left.

I got to the conference in time for dinner, which was fine with me. The conference was fun, as far as conferences go. I met some fantastic people and learned a lot from them. We were in session all day, and would have had no time to see Boston if we were there instead of an hour away in Southbridge. We suggested to the bigwigs that we at least get a half day off to do some library related touring in the city next time. Library bigwigs tend not to be like other bigwigs, so perhaps they listened.

On my flight from San Francisco to Boston, the electronics in my window seat didn't work. I decided to suffer through a twelve hour flight with no movies rather than give up my seat. United really needs to overhaul their fleet.