It All Started So Well …

This post was started at about 10AM, at BWI airport, while waiting for our flight to leave.

We’re on our way to Maine. After a fair amount of scurrying around yesterday, we got it all together and got out the door to get over to BWI early for our flight. There was an amazing level of efficiency at the ticket counter and at security, and so, we got to the first gate with plenty of time to spare — like, two hours.

Kiah is spending our vacation with Tea, The Hub, Kendi, Paratweeters Blondie and Dagwood, Winston and a goldfish or two whose names I do not know. We took her out there last night, and things seem to have gone quite smoothly. Kiah’s not quite sure about Winston — I think he’s likely the largest thing Kiah’s ever seen. However, she did soon figure out that, like Darjha, Winston is tan, curious, and can’t get beyond the white bars of her cage. She was perfectly happy to fly to The Hub’s shoulder, as well as Tea’s and Theresa’s (who was up visiting from the land of Paradise).When we left her, she was chirping and hopping around from perch to perch, chirping as she went. The only worry is Winston’s tail, which is thick, hard and wags often.

So, anyway, back to the airport …

BWI is in the midst of changing their flight information from those big banks of black-and-white CRT screens to a new flat-panel system. The new system will be pretty nice, once it’s done. Flights are listed in order by city, not time, which is actually kind of nice. Unfortunately, D pier, where our AirTran flight was departing from, has exactly one of the new displays. D pier is one of the largest in the airport. If you want to see the display to find out some useless piece of information, like, say, where your flight is, you have to hike.

They changed our gate, and so we trudged from one gate to the next. Of course, no display at the new gate, and no flight info at the new gate. I trudged back to the aforementioned nifty flat panel display to confirm we were in the right place. Good. Finally, a gate agent arrived.

And then, the announcements began …

The flight was over sold. That’s a normal thing in the airline industry. On average, an airline can expect things to  go well if they sell tickets at 150% of capacity. Usually, even at this rate, there are at least a couple of empty seats. But, there’s a convention in Portland, ME, this week, and I suspect at least a few of the folks on this flight are headed there.

The first announcement looking for volunteers to take a later flight were offered two free trips, and then with no takers, four free trips were offered. Still we declined.

The next announcement informed us that our flight crew (the FA’s, anyway) were not here yet. They were on a plane coming from Ft Lauderdale (or Ft Myers … I’ve forgotten which at this point … doesn’t really matter, though), and that the flight was delayed, and subsequently, we weren’t going anywhere for a while either. Maybe we should have taken those four free trips …