New Year, New Adventure: Part 1
Our United Airlines 787 sitting at San Francisco’s G5 gate.
We aren’t even a month into the year and it has been busy. The Captain and I took a trip west, and south, starting off in the land “down under.” There we joined a small cruise ship and visited a string of ports on both sides of the Tasman Sea, learning the ways of the Aussies and Kiwis.
Like all adventures, getting there is half the fun. We started our journey in Ohio at mid-afternoon on New Year’s Eve with an old friend dropping us off at the airport. Thanks Mike! The check-in went smooth, and soon we were boarded and ready for our flight to Melbourne via Denver and San Francisco….but NOT SO FAST! The baggage was slow getting loaded, and then the crew had to request security personnel to remove a visibly intoxicated passenger who got more jittery the longer we waited. With the departure time long gone, the pilot apologized and said he and the first officer would “Fly it like they stole it” to make up for the delay.
The A320 went as fast as it could, but we were still running behind when we deplaned at Denver. No worries, it was a short sprint to the next gate and we were ready to go. Seated and set with six minutes to spare, we waited for something to happen. A quarter of an hour later, the pilot announced that once the baggage was loaded we’d be off and running. A theme was starting to develop.
The trusty old 757 from Denver to San Francisco was fast, arriving nearly on-time, only to squander it by waiting an hour for a gate to open up so we could get off the plane. It turns out there were no ramp workers to remove the jet sitting at the intended gate. The pilot said it seems the holiday evening was a perfect time to call off work, and the airline’s ground operation was running short-handed. When our jet did park, we were about as far from our 787 to Australia as was possible and even running the 1.8 miles wasn’t enough. We arrived at the international departures gate just in time to watch the jetway backing away from the door of the airplane. We weren’t alone either, about 20 other folks were there with us. To cap off the frustration of missing the connection, the now off-duty gate agent emerged from the jetway and breezed past the clump of passengers, responding to all inquiries by saying “Check the App.” By this time, it was half past midnight, it was now 2026, and the airport resembled the beginning of a zombie movie.
For all the traveling we’ve done, this is only the second time the airlines have left us stranded in an airport far, far from home. The first time was Southwest in Las Vegas, coming home from Yellowstone National Park. The other places we were left hanging were within easy driving distance of home, and always on the return leg of the trip. United dumping us in San Francisco on the outbound leg was a first. (This obviously doesn’t include military passenger operations, where getting stuck is almost a certainty and just part of the adventure.)
Okay, don’t panic. Just execute. The Captain and I found an empty corner and began to triage. She got us rebooked on the next flight to Melbourne, a short twenty-two hours in the future, while I found functioning power outlets (most of SFO’s don’t) to top-off phone batteries. A little time on the phone got confirmation from United that the missed connection “wasn’t their fault,” so expect no hotel or meals on their dime. Disappointed, but not surprised, a scan of the local services confirmed that there were no hotels within easy distance, but the airport’s USO would open in about five hours. With that, we went into urban camping mode, and alternated taking naps while waiting for dawn. It turned out to be lucky for us that we didn’t leave the airport for a hotel. After a couple hours of hiding in a dark section of Terminal 3’s F gates, a public address speaker crackled with an announcement requesting The Captain “Call Security from the nearest courtesy phone.” What the heck? Not far from our little home base, The Captain found a phone and called in. It turns out her passport had been found in the Ladies Room and turned in to security. Wow. Lucky break there! A security guard arrived on a golf cart shortly after and returned her passport. We can only guess it had fallen out of her bag sometime after we missed the Melbourne flight.
When dawn arrived, we dragged ourselves to the other side of the airport and signed into the USO. We slept for a few quality hours in their nap room, had breakfast with the nice veteran running the show, and got ourselves cleaned up for another exciting day of killing time in the San Francisco Airport.
New Years Day at KSFO was not great. We walked as far as we could in every direction, visited every shop, and watched a couple football games on TV in the Giants Clubhouse restaurant. When the time came for us to make our way to the gate for our flight to Melbourne, we were both ready to snooze on the plane. With the exception of being a full day late, the flight across the Pacific was unremarkable. Thank the Lord for that.