Travel Wars, Episode 5 (TSA Strikes Back)
December 16, 2007
The saga of travelling to Princeton, New Jersey continued as I approached the first TSA officer at the security check-point at SeaTac airport. I presented my boarding pass and ID. Unfortunately, the ticket (ordered by the client and by no fault of theirs) was issued to my nickname rather than my legal name. So the TSA officer said I would need to go back to the airline ticket counter and get my name changed on the ticket. “OK, no problem,” I thought, “This will burn some time, but otherwise, no big deal.”
I got to the ticket counter, explained the situation to an agent, and asked for a name change. The agent fiddled a little on her computer and relied, “OK, that will be $153.” Apparently, you can’t correct incorrect data on a ticket without paying some ridiculous fee. I guess it costs a lot of money to move around electrons in the airline computer systems. I politely inquired why it cost so much money to correct the error, and the agent looked a little nervous, then told me I could fly without ID.
She wrote “NO ID – SSSS” on the ticket and handed it back to me. According to her, and quite contrary to the repeat announcements on the airport intercom system, you don’t need ID to fly a domestic flight. I’d have to go through some extra security on my way to the gate, but otherwise, I could fly.
After getting through the basic part of security, I was taken off to one of the side areas were a very nice, very large TSA guard walked me through the extra security checks he was going to conduct. He checked me and my carry-one in great detail, pulling most of everything out of the carry-one and checking it for chemical residue. Through the entire experience, he was both polite and professional, so I felt pretty comfortable.
Once through security, I checked my watch and realized that I had just enough time to get to the proper gate before boarding. No time to eat lunch. I’d have to eat in Pheonix about three hours later. It was approaching 11:30 AM at this point. I got to the gate, sat down for a moment, and almost instantly the call came over the intercom for boarding.
After take-off, we encountered a bit of turbulence climbing out of the Seattle area, but it was nothing too remarkable. In fact, the entire flight was fairly unremarkable. The passenger next to me was a mathematics doctoral student, so we struck up a conversations about Stephen Wolfrum, cellular atomata, neural networks, and bioinformatics. It was a fascinating conversation. The student was very curious about what I did for a living because he enjoys writing Perl for bioinformatics.
We landed uneventfully in Phoenix, and after exiting the plane, I checked the nearby screens for my next flight’s gate. It was in concourse B, and I was in concourse A. The trouble was that it was due to start boarding in 5 minutes. OK, time to jog a little.
I headed down these incredibly long walkways, made a couple turns, and ended up in the right concourse. “I hope they move my bags as quickly as I’m moving.” I quickly spotted the right gate and a mob of people congregated around it, so I moved to the side a bit and found a place to stand. Then an announcement hit the air like a brick hits a window: the flight was delayed due to snow in Philadelphia. It was rather jarring in contrast to the fact that Phoenix felt like a summer day in Seattle.
The flight was either going to be delayed for two or more hours, or it was going to be canceled entirely. The people at the counter weren’t sure which at this point. “Well, look on the bright side,” I thought to myself, “I have plenty of time to eat.”
I waltzed to the nearby Burger King, bought a Whopper, and enjoyed it about as well as it’s possible for anyone to truly enjoy airport-quality fast food.
Roughly an hour later and much to everyone’s surprise (and glee), one of the gate attendants announced conditions had improved and the flight was ready to board. We boarded uneventfully, and we taxied and departed rather quickly. It felt like we were in the air heading northeast in no time.
This flight, like the previous, was uneventful. There was an in-flight movie and a few inches more leg room. I was fairly pleased. The movie was Resurrecting the Champ. Pretty dull and poorly written, but almost anything will do when you have no other options.
We landed in Philadelphia a bit ahead of schedule and pulled off the taxiway and up near the terminal. Then we stopped. We were about 50 feet away from the terminal, and there we stayed. A few minutes passed, and then the co-pilot’s voice blared over the internal speakers.
“Folks, we’ve traveled over 2,000 miles, most of which was above 30,000 feet and at speeds in excess of 600 miles per hour. We did all this unassisted. But federal law says that for the last 50 feet, a distance we will cover at a speed of about 5 miles per hour, we need assistance. We’ve requested this assistance 4 times, but we’re still waiting. We’re as frustrated as you are, and we don’t know why it’s taking so long. Please just be patient for a little longer and we’ll get you on your way.”
It was a good 15 minutes later before a little yellow truck drove recklessly in front of the airplane. A minute later, there was a bit of a lurch, and we pulled up to the terminal.
Once off the airplane, the only words in my brain were, “Baggage claim.” It was about 11:00 PM now, and I was getting really tired. Heading through the concourse, a group of us from the flight naturally formed a mob of about 20, all seeking exit. We call descended upon the nearest security gateway, but it was closed. Closed. OK, well, there must be another way out of this airport. We turned and backtracked into another concourse. At the end of the walkway, there was another security station, but this one was open, staffed by close to 10 guards, all of which were standing idly by.
Once through, our mob turned sharply and headed off to Baggage Claim. I was supposed to meet up with my driver, but neither he nor the other drivers were anywhere to be seen. They were probably all standing on the far side of the closed security check-point.
Several minutes passed, and I spotted a group of 5 or 7 drivers all walking rapidly our direction. “Mine must be in there somewhere,” I thought as I scanned by my name. Sure enough, there he was. My bag, which I almost assumed would be lost considering my traveling luck thus far, plopped onto the rotating belt about half-way through the run. We picked up the bag and headed to the car. At this point, it was about 11:45 PM, maybe midnight.
Once in the car, the driver typed the address of the hotel into his GPS, but its database didn’t recognize the street. So we both rummaged through our papers in search of the hotel’s phone number. They were able to confirm directions, and so we were off. The trip went fairly fast; it was only about an hour, heading straight along a freeway from Philadelphia to Princeton.
I forget exactly when I got to the hotel. I was pretty wiped out at this point. The man behind the desk asked for my ID and proceeded to check me in. Then he asked, “And how will you be settling the bill?” In a calm but annoyed voice that must have sounded like I was pretty pissed, I said, “It should have been prepaid by the company that’s flying me out.”
After a little more checking and back and forth with the guy behind the desk, who, I might add, hardly spoke a word of English (sigh), I got my room key and went upstairs. I got to my room around 1:30 AM. And thus the saga of my trip to Princeton, New Jersey came to an end, or so I thought.
