OK…I was not surprised by the trip; the three day advance purchase means I am quite likely to know when all my travel is happening. But this trip is a surprise for my father. His birthday is tomorrow so I’m flying in to celebrate. As an added bonus I get to fly a new line for me (Boston – Jacksonville, Florida) and I got to meet some new friends.
It turns out that I needed a rental car for some local travel yesterday. I found an awesome rate with Avis that covered returning the car to JFK airport instead of just back to the branch in town. So I kept the car overnight and offered up a free ride to JFK for anyone who noticed the post on my Twitter feed. I got one bite but the timing looked pretty bad. My flight was at 9:35am and his was at 12:35pm. A couple tweets and emails back and forth and we realized that we were actually on the same flight. The time zone differences nearly defeated us. Fortunately we both realized our mistakes early enough that we were able to meet up and drive out to JFK together. @pabo has a busy couple weeks ahead of him before tapering off towards the end of the AYCJ month.
Once inside the terminal we were scouting table space and plugs in the JFK T5 food court when we ran in to a guy that @pabo met earlier in his adventures. We chatted a bit and I was able to share my JetBlue online timetable website with them, helping to ease their AYCJ planning efforts. We chatted for a while, discussing destinations and plans for what to do on the ground and then it was time for the flight to Boston.
I ran in to some troubles with the online check-in process for my flights when I tried to get my boarding passes last night. Among other things, this meant that the exit row window seat that I thought I had reserved (and paid $5 extra for) wasn’t actually assigned to me. Fortunately I did still have my original window seat. I made it to my row on the plane after being waylaid for a few minutes to chat AYCJ with the flight attendant who noticed my bag tag and pin. The woman in the middle seat there was hoping that either the guy in the aisle or I would trade with her son who had the middle seat across the aisle. Knowing that it was only a 40 minute flight and that I had a couple rows to myself on the next one I took the other seat. So I managed to go from 11A to 17F to 18B on the flight. Not particularly great but not a horrible situation either.
A quick flight but we still got drinks and snacks (chocolate chip cookies for breakfast!) and then we were on the ground at Logan. A short 50 minute layover gave me a chance to catch up on a couple work calls that I needed to make before the next flight. Before I knew it the gate agent was announcing last call for the flight to Jacksonville. I was the last guy to board the plane and we were soon off the gate and then in the air. Another easy flight, cruising high – FL420 – right down the eastern seaboard.
Just another great day in the air. And, in case you’re curious, dad was pretty surprised when I showed up.
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