March 23, 2003

Poo Poo on Jet Blue

I flew home today for Spring Break from Berkeley, taking Jet Blue Airlines for the first time to a new venue as well, Long Beach Airport. The day started off pretty crappy, because my flight was at 9:40am, and with a peace rally in SF, I wasn't taking any chances on BART. I left at 7am from my apartment, got on BART, and arrived in Oakland by 8am. However, this is when the trouble really began, as the bus driver for AirBART held us up for almost 20 minutes.

Come on! We already pay $2 for a shitty, 10 minute bus ride to the airport, and as if that's not enough, now you're gonna make us wait in the bus for 20 minutes while you wait for more passengers to come, even though no one is showing up? That's great. Way to waste everyone's time, including your own. Plus the bastard hadn't put up his name on the "Your Driver Today is: " sign, so I can't even direct my anger at any real person -- it would be so much easier to just say, you know what, Tim the AirBART driver was a real ass. But no -- it has to be directed at the random bus driver, thus making it less effective and more infuriorating for me!

Get to the airport, get off at Terminal One, and go directly to the security line, because I don't have any luggage to check in. After waiting for about 10 minutes in that line, I get to the head of the line, and the attendant tells me that Jet Blue requires getting a boarding pass from the terminal. YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME! WHAT?! Awesome -- I just waited in a 10 minute line for no reason, is what you're telling me? Ofcourse, it was real nice how it didn't mention this anywhere in the airport or even on the goddamn itnerary. I'm pretty mad by now, and so I quickly rushed to the terminal, hoping there wouldn't be a long line.

I was wrong, ofcourse. The line was plenty long, as tons of people were checking tons of baggage, and delaying everything, while I just wanted to get a boarding pass! I finally get to see the attendant, he gives me my boarding pass, asks me if I have any check in luggage, and I tell him no. He says, well, you're bag looks pretty big, you're gonna have to check it. I'm like, wait, no, that has my expensive electronic equipment like laptop & digital camera, and moreover, I always take this exact same bag ONTO the aircraft, and it has never been a problem before. "Sorry" is the only response. So, I begrudgingly took out my laptop, and checked my bag. I couldn't take the book I was going to read out of the bag, because I couldn't carry that AND my laptop and jacket without having too much of a burden, so I left my book in the bag, figuring, hey it's almost boarding time now, I won't have time to read. Guess again. The flight is delayed 30 minutes.

So I go to the gate, FURIOUS at Jet Blue Airlines, for their lameness and conventionalisms, that Southwest (my usual airline of choice) has all but done away with. I get to the gate, and there isn't a seat to be found anywhere, including on the ground! Well, it's just been one of those days. So I spied a guy getting up from a telephone booth with a seat in it, and so I just ran their and sat there for half an hour. Any time anybody came up to the booth, I would pretend I was making a phone call, so I could keep my seat. Finally after much waiting, where obnoxious people in the terminal were laughing like hyenas, the flight started boarding. I realized that Jet Blue had assigned seating, and next to me were the two most obnoxious, dirty, Berkeley students I had ever seen. And I've been in Berkeley a long while. They were a couple, and throughout the flight they were either making out in "secret," as if me, and all the passengers in a general 10 row vicinity couldn't hear, or laughing like morons AND SLOBBERING WHILE LAUGHING. I could deal with all the public displays of affection and all the laughing, but c'mon! Don't slobber all over yourselves. That's just pathetic. And gross. And it makes me hate you, which I really didn't want to do! Oh well, too late for that.

Land in Long Beach, and realize that this is the shittiest airport known to man (or atleast me), because it has no tunnels, they have stairways on both sides of the aircraft, but no one in either the front or the back of the aircraft will move, so folks like me, sitting in the middle have to painfully stare at the light at both ends of the jetway, and know that I probably have to wait atleast 20 minutes for the slow-moving pieces of shit to get their asses in gear and actually get OUT of the aircraft. Beautiful. Everything was going wrong today. Go down to the "baggage claim" which turns out to be one rickety belt for like every flight that came into Long Beach, and spend about 10 minutes just trying to get through the masses of people from the 10 flights whose luggage was being offloaded, to try and get a space on the belt. Another 20 minutes is spent waiting to get my bag. Finally get out the mess, ready to pull my hair out and go home. Possibly one of the worst air travel experiences I have had in a long while, and believe me -- I've had my fair share of travel experiences since I was a little kid.

So my concluding remarks about Jet Blue? It sucks. I hate it. And Long Beach Airport? It sucks. I hate it. Ok, done with that. The rest of this day has been pretty chill, just relaxing and enjoying the time at home. Just got back from heading out with some high school people tonight: We ended up going to the Spectrum around midnight, getting rejected from random places, and then ended up at Cheesecake Factory, where we were allowed to eat without being 21 years old. All in all, a very tiring day, that began almost 24 hours ago, when I woke up at 5:45am, but still, it feels great to be on break. (This was written at 2:45am, but Blogger didn't publish it until now).