Life slices: On the road
I took the 9am flight from Dallas to Atlanta on American Airlines Monday. It’s apparently a popular flight for business travelers. When they began boarding the flight and made the announcement that it was time for “Executive Platinum” and “Platinum” travelers to board (note to self: you WANT to be one of these), over half the people in the boarding area stood up and boarded the plane.
So much for the logic of “group” boarding. It took forever to load the plane, because over half the seats were taken by the time they called “Group One.”
For the record, I’ve reached “Gold” level since joining AR&D, and that allows me to board with Group One. With the volume of travel I’m doing, Platinum is in my sights.
But regardless of your boarding status, you have no control over who sits next to you. I always book aisle seats on the chance that the center seat won’t be occupied. Not so on this flight. A woman weighing over 300 pounds claimed the center seat, and when the arm rests went down, several inches of her flopped out onto my seat. I felt sorry for her, sorry for me (try a 90-minute flight with your hip butt tucked up against another), and mostly I felt sorry for the poor guy in the window seat. He couldn’t very well lean away, so he was really crushed.
Such is travel. Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug.
I arrived in Atlanta and checked in at the Sheraton Hotel near the Airport to discover this note in my 10th floor room:
We would like to inform you that starting Monday, January 29, we will begin work on all of our exterior windows. Please do not be alarmed if you notice workers outside your windows. For your privacy please keep the curtain closed during the daytime hours.
It gave me a nice chuckle upon arrival in Atlanta and helped me turn the page on a difficult flight.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
i’d need to know more about that platinum program before i joined.
just think, you got a 300 pounder in gold, would you get a 400 pounder or a petite 200 pounder in platinum???
i guess if they gave free liquor (and plenty of it) it wouldn’t matter.