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Showing posts with the label Australia-2017

Finally home

8/17/2017 10:44:00 AM

The final leg of my flight plan was from San Francisco to Vancouver, B.C. As I found out when I checked in at the beginning of my journey in Melbourne, this last leg, while labeled a United Airlines flight on my itinerary was actually operated by Air Canada. Unfortunately, this meant that United was not able to make my seat assignment, that had to be done when I arrived in San Francisco. So yeah, I ended up in the middle seat, second to the last row :0) The flight was full so they strictly enforced the baggage size limits which meant my "checked" luggage was now actually getting checked - this was the one flight I would have actually wanted to carry it on so I could get out of the Vancouver Airport quickly. I was quite hungry now since there had been no time between flights to grab a bite and the last food the airline had given me was at 4:00a on my flight in from Melbourne. But it was my luck, and because I was sitting in the back of the plane that there was very little ...

LAX - The not LEAN process

8/15/2017 11:41:00 AM

The rest of my trip home was wrought with delays, hurry up and wait, very little information on what was happening next from any of the several organizations that touched my journey (United Airlines, TSA, US Customs, etc.) - it was a difficult part of my trip. Getting through customs coming into the US at LAX means you need to pickup your checked luggage and then ideally re-check it after walking it through customs. But starting with no information on which baggage carousel my luggage was going to be on, then no information on where I was to re-check my luggage, the LAX experience only go worse from there. US customs required that I fill out a form before my arrival but the form was never looked at by customs, the same questions are asked at the kiosk they make you use. My passport was also electronically scanned and compared to a photo the kiosk take but I still had to meet with an agent who does the same thing - Not a very LEAN process. The coordination between United, TSA, Custo...

28L

8/15/2017 10:48:00 AM

Goodbye to Melbourne, after a brief delay we were finally in the air. I ended up in the same seat I flew over in, lucky 28L. It's a window seat, which I like on flights that I'll be sleeping on. Having a window seat allows me to lean against the window while I'm sleeping (or trying to). Unless you are in business class or first class, the seats don't really recline much so your head will bob forward when you fall asleep - it's painful to watch people trying to sleep like that. The return trip from Melbourne to LA was a little harder than the reverse for me. The trip starts in the morning so people are awake and talking, the reading lights are on and the video screens are lit with shows. All of this plus that fact that is was during the day rather then at night made it was harder for me to sleep. Several episodes of M*A*S*H and a movie later we still had 8 hours to go - geeze this was a long flight. Eventually, we approached the US coast line north ...