Plaidophile

I had no idea that some airports could be so horribly mismanaged.

This is a non-Songfight entry. I'll post a final Songfight Live 2k3 writeup in a bit.

9:46 PDT Note to self: random deep security screenings go faster, and with the stuff I carry I'm fated to always end up getting a deep screening anyway. Bring on the boarding passes with the SSSS! (and since all of my tickets are technically one-way, I'll even get it on my final flight in a week... Convenient!)

1:49 PM PDT Laptop battery's almost dead, but flight's almost boarding anyway. I don't think this WiFi access I bought here will work in Las Vegas, so this is the last shred of Internet access I have until I get to my cousin's house in San Diego. Which is fine, since the Internet is kind of stupid anyway. ;)

I arrived at the airport 1:15 before my flight. I went directly to the American West ticket counter. The line was monstrous. Huge. Long. Hundreds of people.

Stood in line for an hour. Lots of other people were trying to be on my intended flight (#492 to Las Vegas, not as if it matters at this point). When I was in earshot of the desk, I heard the same line over and over again: "Flight 492 is closed. All I can do is try to get you on another flight." Damnit.

By the time I got to the counter, they were already assuming that everyone coming up was on the next flight to be fucked over.

"Are you on flight 5[blahblah]?" asked the customer service representative.

"No, I was supposed to be on 492, but well, I've been in line for over an hour, so... I'm trying to get to San Diego. I don't care how I get there, but I'd prefer it to be today."

CSR started typing furiously, and surprisingly quickly, he found me a flight for 1:45 PM to Las Vegas, with a 5:45 connection to San Diego.

So, looks like I'll be missing all of the Siggraph stuff I wanted to get to today (notably the panel on the making of Sly Cooper), and get to hang out in the airport for 5 more hours. Joy.

A big part of the problem is with America West; they seem to have forgotten that the reason that early-morning flights are cheap is because nobody takes them. Supply and demand and so on. If they're getting overloaded in the morning, maybe they should raise morning prices and lower afternoon prices, to avoid precisely this problem, because they sure as hell don't have the infrastructure to handle the boarding of three concurrent overbooked flights (all of their counters were open).

All of the airlines are doing this now, though. And as a result, the security line is monstrous (current estimates put it at another hour; TSA personnel are handing out little yellow tracking cards to random passengers under the premise that they can then estimate the wait time).

At least I already have my boarding pass, and by the time I need to head back into the terminal, the line will have dissipated, since it'll be the more expensive flights...

(I've already called my cousin in San Diego and arranged to get picked up at the airport instead of taking a shuttle to the convention center and getting picked up from there.)