Today was a travel day--starting out in Victoria and ending up in San Jose.
The Victoria International Airport, which has at least two flights to and from Seattle daily, because I've been on them, is a nice airport for what it does, which is providing commuter hops to the majors. Flights in are a mix of medium to large turbo-props, and smaller jets. There's a Las Vegas gambler special that looks to be a retrofit 737, and that's the biggest jet I've seen land there.
We ended up getting to the airport early because Chuq and I had no idea where we were going to clear customs and immigration. On the ferries, you clear immigration before you get on and customs afterwards. At Vancouver Int'l, you do both before you get on the flight to the States.
Well, we didn't do either in Victoria. We did go through security at the airport, which was pretty close to what TSA does in the States, but a bit more relaxed.
Then we waited for the flight to show up. Since we knew we were taking a Q200 turbo-prop out of Victoria, we knew what was going to show up at the door. In the meantime, we watched the smaller jets and larger planes all doing their rendition of the last five minutes of "Airplane!", or at least coming darn close to it.
The plane showed up, disgorged its 20 or so passengers, and we got on. There were about 20 of us on the 37 seater, and once we were all in place and the baggage in the hold set up properly (in this small of a plane, you have to pay some attention to not making things lopsided). We took off. We had a fairly stiff wind coming out of the north, and between starting out 10 minutes early (the joy of commuters--if everyone has arrived, and you can get a slot on the runway, you *go*), we ended up at SeaTac about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Which, by the way, was darn close to having us show up earlier than we were supposed to have taken off.
The flight attendant told us that there would be someone from customs and immigration to take us off the plane, and run us through both. Aha! First we had to collect our luggage and promise to not open it unless we were asked to.
It took about 10 minutes to get through both immigration and customs, mainly because they were on different floors. Then it was off to security *again*, so the TSA could check us out before we were allowed back in to the main part of the terminal.
And then it was off to terminal C. Oy. Today is one of the *big* travelling days in the US--all the people who took off for Thanksgiving come back in. So, of course, flights are going to be late. And over-subscribed as well--every flight that was called started out with "okay, we sold too many tickets, and we need this many people to volunteer to not fly out until tomorrow, and those lucky people will get put up for the night and get a free round trip ticket to wherever we go! (Followed by descriptions of much better places than most were going to that day).
When the terminal looks like you could find open crates, chickens, and old ladies in babushkas wandering about, it's *too* crowded. It was too crowded.
Note--I do the SJC/SEA round trip every six weeks or so. I have the C&D concourses of SeaTac memorized. I have never seen the place look like what it did today.
So, our 2:35PM flight, which was rescheduled for 2:53 PM, and was oversold by 7, finally left the ground at 3:02PM. We were told by the Captain that 1) we had a nice strong north wind that would get us in to SJC in about 1hr 28 min, and 2.) we would have a nice clear flight.
Well, #1 was correct. #2 was a crock. We hit turbulence in southern Washington and it followed through Oregon. This is the same place we hit the last time, and it's over the same effing coastal range we now fly over because no one wants to be near Mount St Helens when it blows up.
Feh.
One of these days I will meet the person who designed the Boeing 737, and I will kick the living shit out of him. That has to be the most uncomfortable jet currently available. And it must be cheap to run, because everyone keeps buying more of them. The damn thing bounces in turbulence like a ping pong ball in a pot of boiling water. Trouble is, Alaska only seems to run their MD80's north, which means there's either a pile of them somewhere, or they make a big loop to come back to SJC. In any case, I can't seem to get an MD80 going south, so every time I head back from SEA, it's the "E"-ticket freakout ride.
And no ice cream this time, either. I think Alaska pulled the more interesting snacks for Thanksgiving week, because the amateurs don't know any better. Believe me, there is no better way to get a bunch of computer types on the "taking the I-5 at 32K feet" run to get quiet and happy than to hand out the Dixie cups full of vanilla ice cream. Shuts them up for at least 30 minutes, and on a 2 hour flight, that's remarkable.
So, without much more hassle, we landed at SJC. Looks like we brought the weather with us--there's frost in the forecast tonight.
Posted by lsefton at November 28, 2004 09:53 PM