NWA Strike adventures

Flying with Northwest on day 2 of the mechanics strike was not as eventful as I thought it might, and for that I am glad. However, there were a few wrinkles that probably deserve mentioning.

My original flight was scheduled to leave at 5:22 and arrive at 7:40 PM Pacific. Plenty of time for the 10:40 connection to Sydney. However, my flight was the last scheduled one for the day, so if there was a problem, I would have no option for getting to San Francisco on time. So I decided to go early to the airport and fly standby for the 2:24PM flight.

Gretchen and Quinn dropped me off and I was able to get on the standby list and went right to that gate. I walked up and the attendant was just leaving the gate. It was then that I noticed that the new departure time for the early flight was 4:42 PM. Hmm. So I had to decide whether I should stay on standby and perhaps get a crappy seat, only to save about 45 minutes, or whether I should just go and check into my original flight where I was likely to get an exit row (with more leg room). Figuring that there was still a chance the 5:22 would also be delayed, I stuck with the standby.

I killed time and finally they called by name for the standby. I had seat 7B which is good in that it is toward the front of the plane (less noise) but bad in that it was a middle seat. Oh well, I thought, at least we’re boarding.

My luck didn’t hold, however, as my companion in seat 7C was a pretty big guy and his arm wound up on my side of the armrest most of the flight. Sitting in an airplane seat is never real comfortable, but spending 4 hours leaning slightly to the left the whole time makes it no fun at all. Oh, and did I mention he snored?? The iPod came out immediately.

While we were waiting to push back from the gate, the pilot told us that the hold up for the moment was that 1) we still needed our toilets purged and 2) oh, by the way, we only have 1 working toilet in the main cabin (2 if you count the first class toilet, but we commoners don’t get to use that one). So we could look forward to long lines at the back and rationing of the TP. On the upside, it wasn’t likely that you would have a big reason to go since Northwest doesn’t give coach passengers food anymore (unless you buy it).

We finally pushed back and as we taxiied to the runway, I noticed that the plane for my original flight was at the gate. I looked at my watch. 5:15 PM. I saved 7 minutes. And for that 7 minutes, I got all of the above. I started to feel pretty dumb, but reminded myself of one thing I learned well while selling books: “Accept your situation”. I had made the decisions I did and just had to live with it.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful but it certainly was nice to stretch and spread out a little once we arrived. As I was leaving the gate to pick up my bag, I peeked at the monitor and saw that my original flight did not leave at 5:22 PM. It was delayed for about 90 minutes as well.

So I felt much better after the fact, especially when I checked in for my Sydney flight and found out that I have an economy plus seat which has extra room. So that’s cool.

Here’s to hoping the strike stuff is settled in the next three weeks