Christian Renaud's Blog

Hail Mary!

Wow, talk about a connection to beat all connections.

For starters, we learned Saturday evening that the Sogndal airport cancels about 50% of their flights due to heavy fog, so we chose to drive the six and a half hours from Solvorn to Oslo/Gardmoen and spend the night at the excellent Radisson SAS Oslo airport hotel.  I highly recommend the hotel.

The connection through Heathrow was uncomfortable, but not as bad as expected.  Luckily, the check-in counter agent from British Airways in Oslo was exceptionally competent, and checked us and our bags all the way through to Iowa.  The flights from Oslo/Heathrow and Heathrow/Chicago were as planned, with the exception of some strong headwinds that had us arrive 90 minutes late in Chicago for our three hour connection.

This is when the fun started.

I fly internationally often.  I fly internationally through Chicago often.  I exclusively fly United when I do this, and generally I do not check any bags.

We flew B.A./American on this trip.  I still have very good experiences with British Airways, however I had given up flying American years ago when I had Advantage Platinum status and was informed by a testy gate agent that my fiance and I would have to sit on opposite ends of an aircraft bound for our valentines in Hawaii, rather than the seats together that I had confirmed.  I have a personal problem with domestic airlines and their complete lack of customer service, especially when they are receiving not only my revenues via ticket sales, but also my tax dollars in the form of multi-billion dollar bailouts when they default on their own obligations.

Today was a unpleasant reminder of why I do not fly American Airlines.  When our flight arrived ninety minutes late, and our bags took thirty minutes to emerge from the baggage claim, we were greeted with the line-of-the-damned at the international bag-transit area.  With United, there are three muscled men who stand there when you emerge from baggage claim/customs, take your bags, and you are on your way.  With American, there were five very angry and testy women who were yelling (yes, yelling) at anyone who approached them with a question.  There were no posted signs, no definite queue, and no process as far as I could tell.

I wish I had a) taken a photo for the blog of the queue, just for illustration purposes, and b) taken a photo of the screaming employees, to include in my letter to American Airlines.

After a substantial wait in queue purgatory, we finally took matters into our own hands and took our sizable baggage, two young children, and two seniors up the escalator to the train, went to Terminal three, ran to the checkin-counter to recheck our already-checked baggage only to be rudely snapped at by yet another American Airlines employee.  With 20 minutes to departure, we spotted the x-ray machine nearby and were able to convince the attendant to take our checked bags for the flight, then sprinted (as much as you can with a four year old, a stroller, and two octogenarians) through security.  My wife then took the stroller and literally ran from the security checkpoint to G concourse, to the end (G19, of course!) where she was able to convince the only-redeemable-AA-employee gate attendant to hold the gate open one more minute until the rest of the entourage arrived sweating, crying and puffing.

Total time elapsed in Chicago, 83 minutes.  In all of the airport connections I have ever done, that has got to be the most amazing connection I have ever made (still traversing the security checkpoint in Chicago security 8 minutes before flight time?).

We arrived tired but intact in Iowa, where the American Airlines folks had lost our luggage (second time on the trip).  We chose not to wait at 11pm, and will sort it all out later this morning.

Why do we, as a country, continue to bail out our broken industries, like airlines, automobile manufacturers, and the like?  This is a perverse incentive, and gives the airlines an entitlement perspective that encourages bad behavior and performance.  Can you name one other industry that can get away with screaming at it's customers and continue to exist, other than government-supported monopolists like the airlines and the Local-Exchange-Carriers?

It makes me want to start a political movement.

Technorati Tags: American Airlines

Heading Home

This has been an excellent vacation in England and Norway. We decided on a small change of plans yesterday (upon looking at the clouds forming on the mountains above us) and ended up driving the >six hours from Solvorn/Sogndal to Oslo Gardmoen, so as to remove one variable.

We fly this morning from Oslo to London Heathrow, where we need to re-check through security again, then back to Chicago to Des Moines. We arrive a bit after 10pm into Iowa after close to 18 hours in transit including layovers.

More upon re-patriation.

Much ado about nothing....

Heathrow, in a nutshell:

- Online Checkin- 10 minutes
- Fast Bag Check in line @ Heathrow- 10 minutes
- Security Line- 10 minutes

The worst of it was that the security people made us jump through some hoops with our carry-on baggage. They didn't say anything about our obscenely-overweight checked baggage, thankfully. We ended up wandering on to the plane with a number of sharp objects, like pencils and pens and clippers, as well as a fair bit of food for the children.

Oslo was uneventful and pretty as we went through customs, picked up our baggage, checked in to our domestic Norwegian flight and then passed through security again. 90 minutes total in transit.

We flew from Oslo to Sognal. Nearby Solvorn, where we are staying, is quite frankly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to on the planet. We are nestled in the fjords between a number of sheer mountain faces, and just down from an enormous glacier, which we drove to visit today.

Advanced Fluidity

One of the obvious things about moving to the Midwest of the United States is that there are considerably fewer people, thus considerably fewer drivers than in California. Due to this, the vehicles tend to be larger than could be conveniently driven in California, and the clearances much greater in parking spaces, garage roof clearances, and spacing when changing lanes.

In California, to different degrees in Southern and Northern California, people are generally fluid about lane changes and other traffic maneuvers, given that there are so many people trying to get around. If you attempted to rigidly apply some spacing and discipline to all the drivers, there would be no movement (see any of the articles written about the detrimental effect of metering lights at on-ramps). People simply flow around each other fluidly in an effort to keep forward momentum. This is not to say that people don't get their tempers up (road rage) from time to time.

In the Midwest, by contrast, there is much more rigidity. Fewer drivers, with many coming in to town from rural areas where there are very few other cars, causes people to behave in a more courteous manner, but also are much more territorial about 'their space'. This applies to lane changes, following behavior on roads, and so forth. When you attempt to react fluidly to a situation (change to the other side of the road in a parking lot to assist the person in the other car from moving out), you are met with hostility, as if you are impugning their driving ability somehow by your accommodation.

Here in London, the drivers practice advanced fluidity. They seem to move like water in and out of lanes (their own and others), create their own routes, and otherwise keep the flow moving at all times. There is no hostility expressed when the taxi drivers swerve in to oncoming traffic to avoid a bus, the other drivers simply move out of the way, as if this is completely normal and acceptable behavior (which it is).

I recall taking a bus ride through rural Bali in 1998, and the bus kept moving into the oncoming lane on a two-lane-road, when you could clearly see traffic headed our way. The oncoming traffic would simply move on to the shoulder of the road until we had passed, then regain their own lane. The first time this happened, I thought this may be some advanced form of Indonesian-auto-chicken, however by the end of the trip I was inured to the practice.

My suspicion is that this fluidity of movement is an extension of people living in such close proximity to each other for so long, as I have seen it in Milan, Rome, Paris, Madrid and elsewhere. Ironically, it's just the opposite in New York, where people are notoriously territorial in traffic (horns and fingers at all times). In Iowa, it is gradually evolving from farmers waving at each other from their trucks as they rarely pass each other, to insurance executive's luxury SUVs passing each other with great frequency. With this addition of drivers and traffic, you can see the 'rigid' rejecting the onsets of fluidity.

This causes me to wonder if there is some other pheremonal version of this for spacing of pedestrians and homes. It certainly seems to make rural people twitchy when confronted with the seething mass of New York or London.

Scarcity and Abundance

"Fortunate is the man who knows how to read the signs of the times, for that man shall escape many misfortunes, or at least be prepared to understand the blow."
— Hermes Trismegistus (c. 1st century A.D.)

We were at the Tower today. At some point, I was relaxing near the Traitors Gate and musing to myself that some of the people who came in through the gate via the Thames were making their last boat-trip, whereas others, by a change of perspective and ample use of their wits, actually left the Tower of London in one piece. Some of those lucky souls went on to change history.

As with Churchill's War Cabinet and the Traitor's gate, it occurred to me that our own present situation here in London can be perceived and acted upon from two different perspectives; one of 'Scarcity' or one of 'Abundance'.

The scarcity perspective is that terrorists attempted to bomb airlines in London and that ruined our vacation, we should huddle in fear and not leave the house, and wait obediently until British Airways deems it possible for us to fly.

The abundance perspective is that there are some complications at the airport that we need to 'route around', like the Internet, and that it opens up a world of possibilities. You NEVER get a chance to see everything you put on your list while on vacation, so how does four extra days sound? How about taking the Chunnel to Paris and showing the in-laws and children the Louve, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower? How about catching a train to Budapest, Amsterdam, Nice, playing for a few days and then flying home on a convenient direct flight? Options abound.

Our perspective has been about 80/20 abundance to scarcity. Obviously, we want to plan far enough ahead to not be homeless for the night with six people + luggage. At the same time, there are so many excellent hotels in London that it just boggles the mind. Not to mention Paris, Amsterdam, etc..

The ideal option is that BA chooses not to cancel the Oslo flight tomorrow or Thursday and we can continue on our original agenda. If not, we'll be choosing from our cornucopia of options.

The plot thickens.....

Updates from British Airways: Flying programme for Wednesday August 16, 2006 British Airways is planning to operate almost 90 per cent of its full schedule on Wednesday August 16, as the airline builds-up to a resumption of full services.

The airline plans to cancel three longhaul and 32 European and domestic departures from London Heathrow.

Flying programme for Thursday August 17, 2006
British Airways is planning to operate a full longhaul schedule with 18 European and domestic flight cancellations at London Heathrow.

Decision Growing Closer

This is why I paid so much attention when we were working on 'decision trees' in college.

They have cancelled the flight from London to Oslo that we are scheduled to take each day since the terrorist plot was foiled.

The situation at Heathrow is so bad that the CEO of British Airways has said publicly that if BAA (the British Aviation Authority) doesn't reduce security restrictions at Heathrow, the airport will collapse from the load of people. Needless to say, this didn't go over well with the executive of the BAA, who publicly confronted the BA CEO and threatened to 'ground' the airline. The situation is not improving.

I'm going to trend the Oslo and Chicago flight departures for the next day or two, and then 'call the ball' as we say in the business.

Positive Trend

Update from BA follows, but flight cancellations are down from 30 percent to 20 percent, you can now bring hand baggage (per the BBC, but not BA), and the terror alert level has been downgraded from 'critical' to 'severe'.

More news as news develops.

"Flying programme for Monday August 14, 2006

London Heathrow
British Airways has complied with a BAA directive to all airlines to cancel 20 per cent of its shorthaul operation on Monday August 14 at London Heathrow as a result of continuing congestion at the airport.

British Airways is seeing some improvement to the airport’s operation and continues to work with BAA.

The airline has cancelled 12 European return flights departing from Heathrow Terminal 4 and 27 European and domestic return flights departing from Terminal 1.

There will also be five return longhaul cancellations.

British Airways anticipates that its flights that do operate will suffer delays."

Ode to simplification

I was walking through Churchill's War Cabinet today under what seemed like most of St. James Park and musing on how spartan (see photo) these people lived. They were running the war out of some very small cots and bunks for a very long time.

I quickly related this to my current (infinitely less severe) plight in trying to get six humans and tons of baggage across the pond during a period of considerable uncertainty being broadcast by BAA and BA. We'll inevitably end up shipping a good portion of our possessions back via Fedex, and the remainder will be our rations until we are able to return stateside.

This prompted a flurry of synaptic connections to the insights of various sages over the ages that provided a nice, sobering smack-to-the-forehead. Here are three, just off the top of my newly-smacked head:

If you do not adulate the worthy, you will make others non-contentious.
If you do not value rare treasures, you will stop others from stealing.
If people do not see desirables, they will not be agitated.
- Lao Tzu

What a lot of things there are a man can do without. - Socrates

Simplify, simplify, simplify. - Henry David Thoreau

It is Taoist, Confucian (although I cannot recall the analect), Socratic, and trancendentalist to say that a man can do better without a myriad of possessions and attachments. A more recent sage, Chuck Palahniuk, had an alter-ego Tyler Durden say 'The things you own, own you.'. I think I will have to concur, even before I see the invoice from the shipping company for our baggage.

Four days to go

...until we fly to Oslo. Current British Airways guidance is:

"ISSUED AT 0700 SUNDAY AUGUST 13

British Airways has cancelled 30 per cent of its Heathrow operation today (Sunday, August 13) in line with an instruction from the airport operator BAA to all Heathrow airlines.

This means there will be no British Airways short haul flights at Heathrow's Terminal 4 with 58 flights cancelled to Paris, Geneva, Copenhagen, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Oslo, Basle, Lyon, Brussels and Belgrade.

In addition, 37 short haul flights from Heathrow's Terminal 1 have been cancelled and 10 flights to the United States will not operate.

The airline anticipates that it will operate a full European and long haul schedule from London Gatwick however all domestic flights, excluding Jersey, have been cancelled.

The airline would like to apologise again to its customers whose travel plans are being disrupted. The airline is doing all it can to minimise flight delays and cancellations."

The chunnel ride IS quite lovely this time of year.