wilee
05-03-2004, 08:14 AM
Just got back from a weekend in Indianapolis and everytime I go to the airport it seems that they add a new hastle for the passengers.
I usually get an E-ticket and check my bags at the counter where you pick up the ticket. At Newark Int'l, they had attendants who would put the claim tag on you bag and throw it right on the conveyor behind the kiosk. Now they put the tag on and you have to lug it down the hall to some portable x-ray machines where they also tend to conduct searches if the x-ray shows anything out of the ordinary. One of my bags was searched (probably because I packed my Swiss Army Knife in it).
On the way home from Indy, me and my friends try to get to the airport fairly early (around 2pm for a 4:18 flight) because the security lines for IND are ridiculously long. Once it took us nearly an hour to get up the line and through the metal detectors. When we got there about 2pm, we were told that there was bad weather in Newark so the plane wouldn't be leaving until 5pm. A couple of my friends went out to smoke, and I checked the line for security which was amazingly short. After haning outside with the others for a while, I checked the line again, and it was growing so I told them we'd better hit it. They wanted to stay outside so I went through the line (only took about 10 mins). When I got to the gate, the lady at the counter told me that the plane might leave on time or not. She said something about a "ground traffic" problem at Newark but wouldn't elaborate. From what I hear, the weather by Newark was beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Our flight wound up boarding after 5pm, and we didn't get off the ground until 6pm. We also had to slow down going into Newark for some reason, so instead of an hour and a half flight, it was more like 2:15. We landed just after 8:30 ET. I wish they would be more honest about what's holding up these flights, we heard several different excuses about why the plane would be delayed.
The worst experience I had in flying was leaving San Antonio a few years back. Our plane was to come in from Houston, and make a direct trip to Newark. The plane couldn't leave Houston because of bad weather, so we wound up getting booked on a different airline into Chicago, to continue on to Newark. Instead of landing in Newark at 8:30pm for my ride to pick me up, we got in around 1:30am, because we wound up sitting on the taxiway in Chicago for over an hour while "weather cleared" in Newark. What a sucky ride home that was.
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I usually get an E-ticket and check my bags at the counter where you pick up the ticket. At Newark Int'l, they had attendants who would put the claim tag on you bag and throw it right on the conveyor behind the kiosk. Now they put the tag on and you have to lug it down the hall to some portable x-ray machines where they also tend to conduct searches if the x-ray shows anything out of the ordinary. One of my bags was searched (probably because I packed my Swiss Army Knife in it).
On the way home from Indy, me and my friends try to get to the airport fairly early (around 2pm for a 4:18 flight) because the security lines for IND are ridiculously long. Once it took us nearly an hour to get up the line and through the metal detectors. When we got there about 2pm, we were told that there was bad weather in Newark so the plane wouldn't be leaving until 5pm. A couple of my friends went out to smoke, and I checked the line for security which was amazingly short. After haning outside with the others for a while, I checked the line again, and it was growing so I told them we'd better hit it. They wanted to stay outside so I went through the line (only took about 10 mins). When I got to the gate, the lady at the counter told me that the plane might leave on time or not. She said something about a "ground traffic" problem at Newark but wouldn't elaborate. From what I hear, the weather by Newark was beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Our flight wound up boarding after 5pm, and we didn't get off the ground until 6pm. We also had to slow down going into Newark for some reason, so instead of an hour and a half flight, it was more like 2:15. We landed just after 8:30 ET. I wish they would be more honest about what's holding up these flights, we heard several different excuses about why the plane would be delayed.
The worst experience I had in flying was leaving San Antonio a few years back. Our plane was to come in from Houston, and make a direct trip to Newark. The plane couldn't leave Houston because of bad weather, so we wound up getting booked on a different airline into Chicago, to continue on to Newark. Instead of landing in Newark at 8:30pm for my ride to pick me up, we got in around 1:30am, because we wound up sitting on the taxiway in Chicago for over an hour while "weather cleared" in Newark. What a sucky ride home that was.
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