Cabarrus Cheap Seats

I don’t mind getting this Friday Five out late; because most of my Friday was your Thursday: I was in South Korea this week for a return trip with a member utility I’d worked with last year.

I enjoy visiting Korea. The people are earnest and friendly, and this is one of the more welcoming places for Americans. Most everyone speaks or understands English in Seoul and even smaller cities like Daejon; and the country’s infrastructure is logical. It’s a great place for a newcomer to Asia (like me) to experience a fascinating culture. Admittedly, my view of Korea was clumsily extracted from a homogenized view of Asians from lousy coverage in High School World History curricula, trivia added from space-filler on take-out menus, and some encounters with math and engineering professors and students from the region.

While I do enjoy visiting Korea - it’s hard to enjoy getting here. This trip was more “eventful” than last summer’s jaunt. So, I will share with you five lessons from this most recent trip.

Lesson #5: Don’t fear the long layover. My trip out there was supposed to be as simple as I done before.: Charlotte to San Francisco to Seoul-Incheon. My planned time that I would spend in transit (from boarding in Charlotte to walking off of the plane at Incheon): 19 hours 10 minutes.

My actual time: 47 hours and 25 minutes

I can trace everything back to the additional 28 hours to a single mishap - booking a flight too late from Charlotte. My flight from Charlotte to San Francisco was subjected to a delay while in the air - because of fog at SFO and “military maneuvers”. This caused the pilot to divert the plane to Las Vegas for a unscheduled refueling stop that resulted in another delay.

The end result: the plane from Charlotte that I was on was on approach to San Francisco while the plane I was supposed to be on to Seoul was somewhere in the queue for takeoff. While I was in the plane, I’d thought: “What could I have done differently?” The answer: I was on the 9:25AM flight from Charlotte to San Francisco whose on-time arrival would have left less than 90 minutes of a layover and that required another security check. There was an 8:00AM flight available.

Why did I take the 9:25 flight instead? That was the one that was offered by my agent. It’s standard-practice for those in the travel business to schedule the shortest practical layover, because the once-a-year flyer grouses about the 4-hour layover in some crowded terminal and tickets often get sold on the basis of how quickly you’ll get from Point A to Point B.

Here’s a tip from a guy who has earned Gold status in less than a year: spending 4 hours waiting for your flight reading a magazine and surfing on airport wireless beats 5 hours in customer service and ticketing lines.

Lesson #4: “Alliances” aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The Charlotte to San Francisco leg of the flight was US Airways. The San Francisco to Seoul flight was United. In spite of this, when I checked in at Charlotte: I got boarding passes for both flights and the frequent-flyer miles would be going into one account.

This is due to the magic of the Star Alliance. It is easy to get lulled into the idea that you’re a customer of Star Alliance, but allow me to dispel that fallacy by making and then demonstrating this fact: once an airline gets you to the end of THIER part of your itinerary - you’re somebody else’s problem…regardless of what’s painted on their planes.

While in the ground in Las Vegas, I called my company’s travel agent. She tole me I had two options: exchange the ticket for an alternate flight to Seoul or take my chances with my current itinerary. While I was mulling that decision, the flight attendant came over the PA and announced that it looked like everyone would make their connections. My travel agent told me that my connecting flight to Seoul was scheduled for an on-time departure. I decided to take the advice over the PA.

I should have listened to my travel agent.

The message from the flight attendant was for US Airways passengers - not for those of us connecting to other Star Alliance flights. Because I missed my connection: my travel agent couldn’t do and US Airways couldn’t care less. Thankfully, I’d interdicted my bags before US Airways had left them to linger at SFO’s International terminal.

It was clear to me from anyone I talked to within the “Star Alliance”: I was United’s problem now.

United’s presence at the San Francisco airport is a sprawling and disconnected operation. I had to talk to no fewer than 4 people at the end of 3 long lines until I got to where I needed to go. Once there, I had a new itinerary: I would fly to Los Angeles where I would check-in with Air China to Bejing where I would check-in again with China Southern to go to Seoul.

The planned connection time at LAX: 2 hours 14 minutes. That would prove to be inadequate

Lesson #3: There is a proper time, place, and manner to freaking out. As I waited at the gate for my 9PM (that’s midnight Eastern), I noticed that it was unusually quiet: my gate had changed and the flight had been delayed. This would be repeated about 3 more times.

They rebooked me on the 10:30 flight leaving SFO. I had one hour to go from the plane to make it to an airline that I’d only heard of when they booked me on it AND make it through security again.

That didn’t happen. In spite of running on foot from United’s Domestic terminal to the LAX International Terminal at about the time the airport was shutting down: I’d gotten there too late to make the Air China flight (I would find out later that my bags did)

What would make the difference here is how I reacted. Travel enough and you’ll notice that if you’re sober, professional, and flexible - you’ll set yourself apart from the crowd. In most other types customer service encounters - ranting and raving can get results because people want to dispatch you quickly and will go the extra mile to appease you. This is not the case at the airport.

Airline employees are trained to deal with the ignorant and entitled - by the end of a good shift they’ve been yelled at by a dozen people. They also have another card up their sleeve - they have access to special law enforcement. Airports are under the purview of the FAA, Homeland Security, and some contingent of the city’s police. They have special rooms where they can keep you hidden away while you get questioned and probed. They know this and they know that you know this. Threats aren’t scary to them: they a small militia, special laws, and a multi-national corporation on their side.

The main thing is that they are professionals and your problem isn’t something they’ve never dealt with. Don’t tell them how mad you are. Don’t share with them how long it’s been since you left your house. All you should care about is where you are and what can happen next; because that’s all they care about. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t raise your voice, because that’s sometimes necessary to get the point across. Like expressing your concern that your bags are going to Beijing and you ain’t - that gets their attention. But, it’s important to let them talk and do their jobs - everything that you need to tell them, they’ll ask about: anything else wastes precious time getting you where you need to go.

Lesson #2: Your Backup Plan Is Key. Chances are: you’ll get to where you’re going without too many problems, you’ll enjoy your stay, and you’ll get back when and as you expected. These chances diminish with each mile and connection. Fly from Charlotte to Atlanta - no problem. Try to go to the other side of the globe - you might encounter some difficulty.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Copies: Passport, driver’s license, credit cards, etc. These things get lost and you’re screwed.
• Carry-on Some Clothes: This was one of the rare times that I actually checked luggage. I was enjoying the thought of jetting through security with only a laptop case. That joy went away when I spent some time before going to bed washing my well-worn unmentionables in the bathroom sink and dealt with the windy and cold weather in Seoul without so much as a jacket until my luggage arrived two days after I did.
• Prepare: Know the layout of the airports you’re going through and arriving at. ID your gates if you can. It’ll save you precious time when you’re trying to get somewhere you’ve never been before - like the Air China desk at LAX.

Lesson #1: Keep it in perspective. I’d spent the night (well, 1AM to 3AM at a hotel) at LAX as I was rebooked through Chicago to Tokyo to Seoul. I arrived in Seoul hours before my 4-day long visit to the client - instead of the entire day beforehand. My checked bag followed me two days later.

Here’s the deal. The bag and its contents were worth more than many of the people of the world will ever see in one place and it didn’t contain a fraction of my worldly belongings. This whole debacle didn’t cost me one dime: the airlines covered my rooms on the way and my company would cover any of the incidentals.

This became readily apparent to me when I was watching some older guy from Syracuse berate the Lost & Found guy at Incheon because United had lost his bags. The madman then made a claim that I will cherish until my dying day: “United swore to me that my bag would make it” In my years of jetting around from one site to the next - I can count the number of straight answers I’ve gotten using fingers only, and this guy is claiming he got an oath. Also, It wasn’t like the Lost & Found fella behind the counter was going to channel the hothead from Syracuse rage and make his bag appear magically.

All in all, while I appreciate the opportunity to see Korea and work with this client: it’s great to be home-bound.

See y’all Monday.