Yes, choosing to fly on Thursday morning rather than Wednesday evening made things a bit easier. But still, I never expected the travel today to be as easy as it was. Our trip was a very simple one – New York to St. Louis on American Airlines via a connection in Chicago.
The first flight was almost completely full while the second flight was closer to 75% full. Not too bad. Most significantly there was no fighting for overhead space and most folks had normal sized carry-ons which was unusual.
The lines at the counter (I had to check a half case of wine thanks to the stupid TSA liquids rule and the $15 fee was less than shipping it) were not too bad at all and the TSA lines were pretty reasonable, too. Sure, there was the one family being harassed for having too many Juicy Juice boxes for their two infants they were embarking on a 12 hour journey with, but they eventually got to keep the juice, so that wasn’t a problem either.
Flights were on time – I didn’t see a single delay posted on any of the departure boards. Continental actually operated at 89.7% on-time for Wednesday which is pretty impressive.
The gate areas were calm. The babies didn’t really cry on the flights. Really nothing was all that bad.
As Shrek said in the eponymous film, “It’s quiet…too quiet.” And it really was.
Such a scene scares me a bit. It is almost that things were a bit too quiet. I know that there are ~10% fewer seats flying this year than last and I know that gas prices have come back down to a level that makes driving somewhat reasonable. Plus I know that plane tickets were ridiculously expensive this year and I doubt a lot of folks were making last minute purchases. It makes me wonder if the economy is bad enough that we’ll see an airline fold in the next 3-6 months (US Air, I’m looking at you) or some other drastic change.
In the meantime I suppose I can hold out hope that our return travel on Sunday evening will have a bit of drama of some sort so I can have something else to worry about.
Now it is time to settle in for turkey, stuffing, wine and pie. Happy Thanksgiving!
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