Saturday 24th June 2017
Why is it I seem to book flights that are first thing in the morning. Do I hate myself that much? Not a good start to my morning as not only did the shower have no water pressure, there was no hot water. Cold showers at 3am… Sounds great doesn’t it? Even checking out of the hotel was a hassle. They had told us when we checked in we would miss out on breakfast but that coffee was available 24 hours, that the yoghurt fridge should be open & possibly some fruit too. Nope! The shuttle should have gone 24 hours too on demand. We got to the desk around 345am & there was no one around. 5 minutes later the lady came up as though we were putting her out & when I said we needed the shuttle “4am only”. So much for on demand.
We finally made it to the airport & check in was a mess. People everywhere! This was my first experience with Midway & it wasn’t off to a good start. The thing that made this experience off was that it was not like my other Southwest experiences. No one was there to help, there was no typical southwest customer service, just a typical airport experience of people in bad moods.
After dropping our bags we made it to security where everyone was using the precheck lane up until we joined the line then they opened the main checkpoint & people got confused. Finally got through the crowds & security safely to the other side. Time to find our gate which was on the other side of the airport. One of the last gates. It was strange to me that our plane came into a gate late last night & wasn’t yet on the gate if it had been towed off for either maintenance or something else. This day was getting strange.
Nothing really open down our end of the airport so stuck to what I had on me, but just stumbled around like a brainless idiot. Around 20 minutes before boarding the crew shows up, still no plane. They start asking questions, the gate agent looks around aimlessly, pretty sure this is going to end in a gate change. Seconds later the crew start packing up & heading off, low & behold the plane wasn’t moved it stayed on its original gate. So 10 minutes before boarding was due, they changed our gate to the opposite end of the airport. Sigh. We were going to be delayed.
Off we trekked to the other side of the airport and were the first two people at the gate, even beating the gate agent (who stopped for coffee apparently). By the time we started boarding we were going to be at least 20 minutes late.
Southwest Airlines – WN4652
Chicago Midway to Los Angeles
0610-0830
Boeing 737-700 (N7731A)
Economy Class – Seat 16F
Boarding: 0550 (Gate A17)
Push Back: 0652
Take Off Roll: 0656 (Runway 31C)
Top of Descent: 0827
Touch Down: 0857 (Runway 24R)
Shut Down: 0910 (Gate 10)
Boarding was introduced in the usual Southwest fashion, an explanation of how to line up correctly. There was a lot of people who did not understand how this works & it was the usual shit show while people tried lining up where they shouldnt. It all worked out in the end & we soon got onboard.
Took a seat towards the back, although my favorite seat was open I was scared I wouldn’t be able go use underseat space so left it. Rookie move Mal. After we settled in it was then wait wait wait. We were all on by 6:15pm so around 10 minutes late, but sadly we now had maintenance problems. Yep, gonna be late.
We waited & waited, eventually getting the ok to close the door almost 35 minutes late & being off the gate 45 minutes late. We had the usual Southwest speed taxi to the runway and had barely stopped when we were told line up & wait. As we got clearance to take off the two up front were not messing around, they planted the throttles & when wheels went up they pulled back and climbed out steeply. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a steep climb out on a 737.
As we climbed out the child in the row behind me continued to kick & hit my seat and then the guy in front of me reclined into my face, this day couldn’t get any worse could it? I spoke to soon. Shortly after leveling off I pulled my earplanes case out so it would be easy to grab when it came time to take them out. Well I apparently must have knocked it off at some point & it disappeared. I lost my shit at this point as those earplanes are painful after a while. By this point I had them in almost 2 hours & the pain was kicking in. I needed to keep them in something clean so they wouldn’t put dust or anything in my ears. I lost it.
Heidi smartly got a clean cup & lid from the flight attendant for me to store them in. She’s always smarter than I am. I always tend to lose my shit when I lose something (news flash happened twice on the flight, kinda was like a tired 2 year old). After that since I was trapped in hell I tried to catch up on as much rest as I could, didn’t get much. I napped a little but it wasn’t worth while.
About an hour out I went through my usual rituals getting ready for descent & we started to pass over the grand canyon. It looked good but awfully hazy today. Right on 30 minutes out we started our initial descent towards LAX & about 10 minutes later the pilots gave their warning. Quickish descent over the city & started lining up for the north runways.
Came in right over In n Out as the child behind me started screaming nonsense, and I mean screaming, at the top of his lungs. Did I tell you he was 6? How do I know, well he repeatedly told his parents he was 6. Ugh. Anyway as we touched down we had a fairly prompt exit from the active onto the taxiway, but we were way down the west end of the field. Standing out down there was the new Qantas hangar and boy were they big!! Qantas has to move down there after they pulled down a lot of the older space that American used for the Mid Field Concourse. QF though got the better end of the deal as AA got shafted with old facilities.
We taxied back towards Terminal 1 and as we approached Terminals 2 & 3 it was strange to see them filled with Delta aircraft. Guess the new move is working away. However sadly we were coming into gate 10 at LAX. The Tow in gate! Fun! The pilots came on and gave us a brief to say that we would take a little bit to get into the gate as we had to be towed in and to not stand up until the seat belt sign is off. Thankfully everyone did as they were told.
Not too soon later we were off the plane, into the terminal and waiting for our bags. They took a while but they showed up!.