Airport Hell
22 December 2008 – 9:05 pm
Traveling during the holidays fucking sucks. 
With all the delayed and canceled flights the SFO domestic terminal was in chaos. At the United counters where I was, people were dismayed, swearing, and a few were actually weeping. For some unknown reason, United had only six agents running all counters with a few bag handlers and no one directing the flow of people.
After queuing for an hour and a half at the online checkout area, most of us were told that it was now too late to catch our flights and that we needed to requeue in another line and wait for an agent (they had one agent at the online check counter trying to serve well over a hundred people).
Trying to expedite the situation, I called their customer relations number three times only to get frustrated by their voice-only menu system. Apparently United never tested their system in real-life situations because speaking to a computer was utter useless in an airport with ambient noise, but that’s a UI discuss for another post.
Three lines and nearly three hours later I was put on standby for another flight and the situation around me only compounded as tensions rose and more people missed their flights.
Jump-forward four hours and I had been on standby for two different flights and was now being told I wouldn’t make it on the third. Staying with the days theme, I was asked to stand in yet another line for over an hour and half.
Reaching the counter I was polite as possible but as luck would have it my agent was cousins with the Wicked Witch of the West. So instead of trying to help me, she repeatedly lied to my face about the availability of other flights until I pulled out my phone and read her the available airlines and flight numbers.
Agreeing that they were available and that a change was possible, she started citing that there were a lot of people in line and that it would take some time to change the ticket and that I need to go to the other airlines myself (to stand in yet another line).
After asking her politely to change my flight she suddenly changed gears and started telling me that she had no sympathy for me because I showed up for my flight only 2 1/2 hours before it was going to leave (the flight was delayed over an hour so technically I was 3 1/2 hours early).
I’m usually a nice guy but everyone has a breaking point and this was mine.
After spuing a small rant that was about 50% expletives I turned around and to a line of smiling faces that were nodding with approval. 
Officially out of options in the airport I found a quiet corner and tried my luck with the United’s phone number. Five minutes after connecting to an agent I had a new flights booked was good to go… he did more in a few minutes than all the other agents combined.
After thanking him multiple times, I went home… now I get to try it all over again bright and early tomorrow morning!
