The good, the bad & the unexpected during a long journey
When I headed for Israel for the Society of American Travel Writers Freelance Council meeting, I knew the journey would be long, requiring an overnight near Newark International Airport (EWR). El Al is the only airline I can think of whose transatlantic flights leave the East Coast in the early afternoon, and there is no way to get there from Denver on same-day flights. I knew that the return trip would be long, because I would be starting in Eilat, the Tel Aviv-Newark segment alone is 12 butt-numbing hours in the air and then I still had to get to Colorado. But the odyseey was more orduous than I’d anticipated.
First Delay in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv, January 26 –At 1:20 a.m. in Israel, I was supposed to have taken off 40 minutes ago via El Al from Tel Aviv (TLV) to Newark. Except there was a mechanical delay — plus the airport is closed to departures every night from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. I wanted to alert United, because I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to make my flight to Denver. I tried to do this online, somehow, but United’s website continued to give me a cyber-runaround — asking for my MileagePlus number again and again and not enably me to proceed from there to My Flights or My Reservations or anything else. the website was than My Frustration.
Fortunately, El Al invited SATW members into the Business Class lounge, and an agent there connected me to United’s reservation line and handed me the phone. The first recording said my call would be answered in 5 to 10 minutes. It was closer to 15. When an agent finally came on line, I told her that I was delayed for more than four hours in Tel Aviv and needed to alert them because I wouldn’t be able to make my Newark-Denver flight. She chose not to listen to the second half of what I said and switched me to the international desk, where the recording said the estimated time before my call would be answered would be 54 minutes to one hour! Last time I looked, Newark to Denver is not an international flight, but United’s reservationist chose to get me off the phone as quickly as she could. I wish I had gotten her name.
El Al unexpectedly told the dozen of us SATWers who were practically taking root in the lounge that we would be upgraded to business class — a welcome announcement. But just to assure that the journey would not go smoothly, the take-off was closer to 5:45 a.m. than to 5. I saw my chance of making my EWR-DEN flight slipping away.
More Delays at Two U.S. Airports
Newark, January 26 — The one good part, from my perspective, about El Al’s schedule is that no other international flight arrives at EWR at that time, so that there was no waiting in the cavernous immigration hall. After I claimed my bag, Customs selecte me as one of the lucky travelers directed to the agriculture station to be asked, again, whether I had any plants, animals, meat, fruits vegetables, seeds, etc. The woman in front of me was bringing in some dog food. The agent didn’t want to seet he dog food but questioned her at length about what kind of dog food it was. First her luggage then mine went slo-o-o-o-owly through some device that does something. By the time I got from Terminal B to Terminal A, my nonstop to Denver had departed. I was rebooked via Denver — two flights, only one of which was delayed due to late incoming aircraft.
Chicago, January 26 — Although the Newark agent assured me that there were no snowstorms or other delays at O’Hare (ORD), she didn’t know that my Denver flight would be delayed due to late-arriving incoming aircraft. The plane was packed. My seat was not in the last row but in the second-to-the-last row, meaning that it took a while to deplane, but I still beat my bags to the carousel. By the time I retrieved my bags, the RTD bus had left for Boulder, and I only had to wait 50 minutes for the next one.
As I write this, it is 4:45 p.m. Friday in Colorado and 1:45 a.m. Satruday in Israel. That’s nine time zones. And the long travel day made it feel all the longer — and without 12 hours in business class, it would have been longer still.
