To frequent flyers, airports rank with dentists’ chairs, and for good reason. Not all the anxiety is caused by heightened security -- airlines and airports do their share
You arrive at the airport more than two hours early, all your liquids are in less-than-three-ounce sizes and in a clear zip-top bag. You’re wearing slip-on shoes, no belt and no jewelry. You have one small check-in suitcase and one carry-on bag. Getting onto your plane should be a piece of cake, right? Maybe not.
In the next few blogs, we’ll examine some pitfalls that air travelers can expect, suggest possible strategies, and tell about my recent flights from Boston to Lisbon, Portugal. For all the frustration, that experience renewed my faith in people – or at least the people at TAP, the Portuguese national airline.
And I learned a bit along the way. The first lesson was to remember to get my seat assignment and boarding pass online before leaving home, which I had forgotten in the last-minute trip planning.
Although my departure day dawned clear, a storm the previous day had canceled flights, and Logan airport was still overflowing with stranded people. They got preference over those with confirmed reservations. Fair enough. But I had to make an evening flight from Newark to Lisbon.
I did not have a boarding pass, although I was checked in and my luggage was already on the plane, and I was next in line for the remaining seat on the Boston-Newark shuttle. But a man with a reservation for the next flight appeared, and he got my seat. Why? He had a first class ticket (on a shuttle?), so even though it wasn’t for this flight, he had preference over ticketed passengers.
The fact that I had an onward international flight had put me into the preferred category, but not quite preferred enough to get me a seat. I was not considered a “connecting flight” because I was changing airlines and had separate tickets.
I missed the flight, and in the process learned two valuable lessons: Get the whole trip on one ticket and don’t leave home without a boarding pass.
