Our trip to Auckland – Part 1, Seattle to L.A.

The day of departure had finally arrived. After frantic last minute preparations the night before, we ended up  with 4 hours to sit and twiddle our thumbs while waiting for our ride to the airport. It was a beautiful day, traffic was light and we got to the airport two and a half hours early. Time to check in. We had booked the flight through ANZ; Seattle – San Francisco – Auckland with a code-share with a major airline (no names but the initials are UAL) for the domestic portion of the trip.

Arriving at the check-in counter, we saw a gleaming row of self check-in kiosks similar to slot machines in Vegas, two human ticketing agents, and a host of people of indeterminate use standing around . Being a frequent flyer on said airline we naturally went to the Premier Executive line where we were ignored for about 15 minutes. Finally giving up, we went to another line where there was someone “working”. After we waited in that line for a long time while they checked in a Pakistani family of about 12, we were told that that line was for people who did not have bags to check, and we needed to go over to “that” area.

“That” area was the aforementioned deserted void of gleaming stainless steel kiosks. We decided that maybe we might be able to make some progress there. Step one was to stick your passport into a scanner. I did this and it came up with Cynthia’s name and asked if she was going to Auckland. I tried it again with the same result so pressed “yes”. The next message that came up instructed me to pick up the attached phone where a nice lady from India answered. She asked me some questions and then told me that I needed to get assistance there. I told her that I had been trying for about 40 minutes to do just that. To this she responded that I should “get someone’s attention”. Easier said than done.

We went back to the Premier Executive line where we were again ignored, so I thought I would try the “high tech” method again. This time the passport scanner didn’t even work. Back to the line. We finally got noticed and “approached the bench”, where it was determined that the airline had no record of me being booked on the flight to San Fran. Cynthia yes, but not me. She told me it was my lucky day, and there were two seats left; not together of course.

We went to the boarding area and boarded the plane. We pushed off and proceeded to taxi for quite a while, and then the engines were shut off. Looking out the window I noticed that we were back at the gate. The pilot announced that there was a small mechanical problem in that he couldn’t steer the nose wheel very well. We were informed to stay on the plane while maintenance checked things out. The pilot kept us updated every 15 minutes or so. We only had a two hour window in San Fran to catch our flight to Auckland (one flight a day). After an hour I talked to the pilots to see what the latest time was that we could leave SEA, and still have a reasonable chance of making our connection. He said we were pretty close right then. I talked to the gate agent about it and he said that maintenance was almost finished, and we would be there with plenty of time. I looked over his shoulder at the Captain who was shaking his head in the international symbol of “no f-ing way”.

Maintenance finished up shortly and we were on our way. We taxied and taxied and taxied, and then the engines shut down. You guessed it; we were back at the gate. The Captain announced that if the aircraft was not perfect, we weren’t going (good call). The stewardess (insult intended) told us the plane was broke, and to get off, and have a nice day (I’m paraphrasing). There were 12 of us booked on the Auckland flight, so when we got off the plane we were paged and told that everything was set up and we were all booked on the 6:33pm flight to LA, where we would connect with the 10:30pm ANZ flight in plenty of time. We boarded the plane, and promptly at 7:30pm our 6:30pm flight was off!

While lounging about in the rear of the aircraft waiting for the lav, one of the stewardesses (stewardii?) told me that we were late because the original plane for that flight was also broke and they had to get a spare. We were told that ANZ had been informed, and there would be a UAL agent at the gate to give us instructions.

We arrived at the gate at LAX at 10:30pm. The door was locked, and no agent. After a while someone wandered down and let us in, and then took off. We had to take a shuttle bus to the international terminal, just to discover that the ANZ desk was deserted. I think I heard crickets. We finally found an ANZ person who didn’t have the vaguest idea what we were talking about, told us the airplane was boarded and had pushed off, but agreed to put us all up in a hotel, and re-booked us on the 10:30pm flight the next day.

So here I sit in the LAX Westin killing 24 hours. On a positive note, we did meet some of the other Kiwis on the flight and we formed sort of a club. I was going to go for a parody of the television show “LOST”, but you guys probably don’t watch it.

Will Chuck and Cynthia make it to Auckland? Will their luggage? Will Bobby Sue have Billy Joe's baby? Learn the answers to these questions and more in Part 2, “Escape from Unitekistan”.

Total trip cost to date: $4,200.00 USD