Airport Ordeal

On Monday August 18, I was scheduled to fly to Las vegas for a seminar on Tribal Constitutions, hosted by that organization that seems to specialize in issues almost unique to Indian Country, the Falmouth Institute. It had been some time since I last traveled anywhere of note in the line of Tribal business, and given my experience in tribal government, this particular seminar was of high interest to me.
Problem is, I never made it. Generally, you have to board a plane flying to your destination in order to actually arrive at your destination. Makes sense.
I've learned over time, even long before the ridiculous security lines post 9/11, that when dealing with a non-refundable plane ticket, arrive early. There are few feelings as crappy as watching your own flight take off without you. I did arrive early, the standard two-hours as recommended, only to find the flight was delayed by nearly two hours anyway. Passing the time in an airport can be a real challenge, but I made do thanks in part to my iPod and the nearly 20GB's of music I've amassed thanks to CD burning technology and eMusic. I must say the Radiohead's new album, the one they posted on their website last year for fans to download and pay what they wish, is fantastic.
After boarding the plane, it became apparent that the flight was not destined to leave that day. While we taxied onto the runway, our pilot politely informed us that he did not feel right about taking off with doubts about some of the machinery, and after some time drove the plane back to dock, while mechanics scurried in and did what they do. A couple of updates indicating we'd be airborne in "a while" proved false, and after nearly three hours we the passengers were discharged after being told that the pilot and crew had timed out, and the airline would quickly search for a new crew. We could, if we chose to stick with the flight, be arriving early in Vegas the next morning. Seeing that I'd be destined to sleep through most of the first day of a two-day training, I took the same option that seemingly most of the rest of the passengers did, which was rebooking, and in my case, hoping that Falmouth would be lenient and allow me to transfer the seminar fee to some other time, which I believe they would. My bag would not be taken from the plane, meaning I'd be making a return trip to the airport within two days.
I am not trying to bore people with this posting. What I am trying to do is share how travel can be so unpredictable, and how a few hours can make a world of difference. All in all, I spent nearly eight hours at the airport on Monday, and went nowhere. I made a point to remind myself to write about the ordeal on this blog because my feelings at that time were very vivid. It dawned on me how some Tribal members must feel about Council at times. When things go wrong, almost instinctively we just want somebody to blame, even though in some circumstances there really is nobody to blame. Machinery fails, schedules collide, details get overlooked. But for a while, I was feeling no less frustrated than the portly fellow across from me who threw his carry-on into a chair and swore rather loudly, despite the presence of children, after speaking with an airline representative and my guess is realizing that it might be some time before he left this airport.
What surprised me most, though, and this might actually be somebody's fault, was the lack of foresight for these kinds of situations. For one, if a crew is due to be off work within a few hours, I don't quite understand why that wasn't thought of before loading passengers onto the plane. Obviously they couldn't time out mid-flight. Second, it never occured to me how in considering situations like this, at least one restaurant wouldn't be open for stranded passengers. Portland Airport was a ghosttown of food options, with only a candystand to make do for nearly 100 passangers, many of whom would have to wait for a replacement crew and flight for who knows how long?
It was hardly a traumatic experience, and I am sure to one day get another chance at that seminar. But I guess my ultimate point is that as a policy setter myself, I've come to look at these kinds of situations through the lense of policy-making, thinking almost instinctively about what rules I'd have made in order to ease the frustrations of a group of people who thought what would be a simple two-and-a-half hour flight would leave them stranded, hungry, and uncertain of when they'd be going anywhere. In other words, one of the worst feelings in an airport not involving terrorists.