Sir Haxington Nearly Loses His Knighthood at the Airport

December 23, 2010 1:04 am Sir Haxington Seattle

Long story short, I was running behind for a flight, then missed it. A dumb mistake, a miscalculation that would cost me an an entire day.

I felt like an idiot. An asshole. Ashamed and embarrassed. Not to mention I had people waiting for me at the other end.

I barely missed the flight too. Five extra minutes and it would been fine. Sadly the stars misaligned and I paid the price. The check-in kiosk at Alaksa Air confirmed my fear upon entering my confirmation code in vain.

“You have missed your check-in time, please see the service desk for further assistance.”

Oh boy.

The walk to the desk was a somber one. Getting a new flight three days before Christmas is usually impossible. To make matters worse, the flight I missed was only a connecting flight, which ratcheted the difficulty level of leaving that day to 10.

Now, I’m trying to keep my cool. Technically this isn’t my fault, although I could have done more to prevent it. Let’s just say I’m feeling the angriest I’ve felt in a while, and my traveling partner is on the verge of tears.

So we wait in line. Alaska Air has a separate section of the airport to handle customers who aren’t simply checking in. Then it’s our turn.

I’ll handle this. I’m extremely good at this kind of thing, even when I’m about to boil over.

“So we missed our flight…” I say. The guy behind the desk sympathetically asks us where we were headed and what flight we were supposed to be on.

Just like in every standup comedy bit you’ve seen about airports, the guy stares at the screen blankly, types away, then stops every few seconds. This goes on for a few minutes while no one says a word.

“Well, theres nothing left to your destination today…”

Sadness. However, I explain that we had a connecting flight and we’re to be picked up in another city anyway.

He taps away some more and finds a flight that will get us somewhat close where the person picking us up can still come get us… an additional two hour drive away.

We take it.

My travelling companion calls our host and explains the situation. I’m not much in the mood to explain the problem to anyone else at this point in time.

As the guy prints our boarding passes, he asks why we missed the flight.

“Traffic?” he inquires.

“Just a dumb mistake,” I admit, followed by uncomfortable silence.

“It happens,” I say.

“It most certainly does,” he replies.

Thanks for not making me feel worse. He could have been an ass, but he was really nice and compassionate about our dilemma. Three days before Christmas, we miss our flight, and he’s totally helpful. He genuinely feels sorry for us. You can see it in his eyes and the expression on his face. Exactly what you want from customer service.

The tickets are printed. We thank him and leave, the only cost is our time to wait for our new flight, five hours later. Alaska Air for the win, as usual.

But wait, there’s more.

Trying to dig ourselves out of the hole we found ourselves in, my travel companion hatches a semi-ingenious plan. Let’s see if United has direct flights open to our final destination!

Without getting into too much detail, Alaska doesn’t fly to our tiny town. If we go Alaska, we have to drive from two hours away (now four). United is the only carrier that flies to our town but they were booked solid when we made our original travel arrangements. But maybe they had an opening?

With hours to kill, what could it hurt? My faith in the human species it turns out.

As we wait in the United line, we explain to a guy working the lines that we’re not checking in but we want to talk to a live human being. The United set-up is massively disorganized compared to what Alaska has going on.

We get placed in another line when we are approached by A. Lorenz, an older, short, bald man with a cheerful look on his face. A man I’ll soon never forget.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well we missed our flight…”

He cuts me off. The smile instantly disappears.

“Ohhh! How could you? Shame on you! Three days before Christmas? Do you know how bad this is? Do you honestly think you can get another flight out? You’re crazy!”

He says this in an agressive and mocking tone, all at once, non-stop.

Now, I’m laughing and fuming on the inside all at once. He’s berating me without knowing the whole story. For all he knows we could have just been through a family emergency. Plus, I just went through this whole process with another airline and it went as good as it could have.

I hold up my boarding pass I had just received ten minutes ago, not more than a few hundred feet away. I keep a cool head.

“Yeah, well luckily we already have a flight out of here with Alaska, so we have a backup plan.”

His attitude shifts a bit for the better.

“Oh! Well, good for you guys then. Where are you trying to get to then?”

I begin to think the last mini-freak out A. Lorenz had was him trying to be funny. A wise guy. A comedian.

“North Bend.”

His face goes blank.

“North Bend… Indiana? We don’t fly there.”

“No, North Bend, Oregon.”

Blank again. Oh no, here it comes, I can feel it.

“North Bend? Oregon? There’s a North Bend, Oregon? Never heard of it. I’m new here. From the East Coast. I’m a transfer.”

Great man, great. Can we please get on with it?

“Well, I can tell you we don’t fly there either. Neither does Alaska. We’re United. That’s a whole other thing over there.”

Oh, thanks fuck-face! I didn’t know there were different airlines here at the airport! And they fly to different locations? I’m glad I ran into you today so you could school me on wonderful news I was unaware of until now!

Now, keep in mind, both my travel partner and I have booked flights with United in the past to and from our small town. It’s the only carrier that goes through there. Alaska used to, but they stopped. Its why we know he’s wrong. Plus we tried booking flights there this very Christmas but they were simply full.

Then my travel partner jumps into the fray.

“We’ve flown there before with you.”

“We don’t fly to North Bend,” he says adamantly.

“Yes you do.”

“We don’t fly to North Bend,” he repeats with a smirk.

“We tried to book a flight not long ago to there, but you were fully booked.”

“We don’t fly to North Bend,” he says condescendingly.

My partner in crime looks at me pleadingly, when Napoleon breaks the silence.

“Do you wanna bet we don’t fly there?”

Now, this is some class-A, level 12, grade school shit. I’m stunned, and about to be forever banned from SEATAC for breaking this guys nose. My hand balls up into a fist.

“No…”

“Yeah! You don’t want to take that bet because you’ll lose!”

Emphasis not mine. Is this really happening? A United airline employee is relishing the fact that he’s somehow putting us in our place even though we know he’s wrong. Does he want to get fired today? What is the deal? It’s insane!

Keep in mind, he’s not at a computer, we’re still in line. And he’s not checking any of this.

“Can we please just check this?”

“Oh you want to check this? Sure! We can check it right here!”

So he hops behind an empty terminal and begins typing away, not saying anything with a smile on his face. We’re just waiting for the confirmation that we’re right so he’ll eat crow. It’s not about getting a flight out anymore, it’s about owning this total asshole.

A minute or so passes and I swear to God I heard him mutter the airport code, OTH, under his breath. His smile fades. Oh, any second now.

He looks up as his smile returns.

“We don’t fly to North Bend, Oregon.”

We look at each other, amazed. We’ve had enough.

“Alright, have a nice day.”

“Yeah, you guys have a wonderful day!”

So what the fuck! I’m at a loss. I know United flies there. Why does he hate us so much? 

We begin to walk off, defeated. We have a backup plan anyway, so who cares right?

We didn’t walk more than 20 feet before we both had our phones out. Fuck this, I’m making sure United flies there.

Sick new Windows 7 phone pulls up their crappy site. I tap in SEA to OTH on whatever default date was set, somewhere in the middle of January. Set to one-way for the hell of it.

Three flights.

Fuck you asshole, I’m getting back in line. I got all the time in the world now. Well, at least four hours.

So we wait for a bit, and this time we’re approached by a different United employee.

“Hi, can I help you?”

Without telling her about Cockface Magoo, now dealing with a new passenger, we go through the same charade.

“So we missed our flight and we were wondering if you had any available flights to North Bend, Oregon?”

“North Bend? North Bend… Oregon? We don’t fly there…”

Oh. My. God. Here we go again. This can’t be real.

Before we go too far down the rabbit hole, I explain that they in fact do fly there and that the town is very small but very real. It even has an airport where plans land and take off from!

“Pretty sure we don’t fly there unless it’s a cross code…”

I drop the tech bomb.

“We just checked your website. You definitely fly to there. I could book flights there in January right now.”

“Must be a cross code!”

What? 

“What is a cross code?”

So she explains that other smaller airlines that I don’t remember the name of and have never heard of share some sort of code and booking system with United.

“So, do we go somewhere else or do we book with you?”

“Oh, with us.”

“So can we check if there are flight available?”

“Sure!”

Jesus. Finally. Does it really have to be this complicated?

She gets behind another kiosk and taps away. Asshole Lorenz is now ice grilling us from five computers down. I’m trying to ignore him but I so badly want to put both middle fingers in the air and yell “Sup fuck faaaaaaaaace,” LA style.

“Looks like were booked solid…”

As she drones away about how its hard to get flights now and blah blah blah, I don’t really care. I feel vindicated that we weren’t crazy and that Old Shorty McBald is a complete idiot and asshole. They do fly there. Eat. A. Dick.

We thanks the lady and walk away. We don’t even look back. It felt good to stand up for ourselves in the face of complete ignorance. I still don’t know what his deal was, or why he had it out for us, or why he decided to blatantly lie to us. Maybe he thought we wouldn’t come back and challenge his superior knowledge?

I imagine that A. Lorenz got transfered to SEATAC because they were trying to get rid of him somehow but couldn’t. The ol’ corporate shuffle. I would file a complaint and try to get him fired, but karma is a bitch and people like that tend to fire themselves anyway.

So compare that experience with how Alaska Air handled it. 

Alaska Air has always had great customer service. I love flying with them. I like to think it’s because they are based on the West side, ’cause you know it’s the best side. They even bumped us up to an earlier flight at the end of the day, shaving off another hour due to some cancelations. So good.

United? I’m fairly certain they regularly hire ex-convicts, high school drop outs, prostitutes and escaped mental institution patients. You don’t believe me? Wanna bet me on it?