People of the Airport

Over a nine-hour period yesterday, I had an extended opportunity to observe and interact with many people associated with several airports. I arrived at Dulles early because my friend who was dropping me off had to take her son to soccer practice. I'm pretty good at killing time, so being there two and a half hours before boarding was no problem. In fact, it was a good thing; I was somewhat disoriented and accidently went to A Terminal rather than C where my flight was departing. Shortly after I arrived at the gate, I heard the desk agent saying something about the flight being overbooked. She was offering a hundred dollars in travel credit to anyone willing to take a later flight. No one responded. The credit amount increased in small increments, eventually reaching the highest amount allowed, $700. I hadn't been tempted -- I was sick and just wanted to get home -- but I can take a nice trip with that much travel credit. I called my son and told him what was going on. He said to go for it if I wanted to, that he would pick me up later. I signed up.

As it turned out, only one other person volunteered, and he ended up getting on the plane, no delay for him but no credit either. I had the option of sitting around Dulles until 10:00 for the next flight to Jacksonville or hustling it over to National for an 8:00. I opted to go to National. In addition to my $700 flight credit, I got a taxi voucher for my airport taxi and a food voucher for seven dollars. Not that I wasn't grateful, but seven dollars doesn't go far at the airport! My taxi driver was an Eastern European gentleman about my age who had been a literature professor in his own country before coming to the U.S. We talked about the reward of teaching and shared some other philosophical conversation. Despite the miserable D.C. rush hour traffic, the ride was quite pleasant.

In a lot of ways, my travel was a hassle. On the other hand, I encountered many nice people, and in retrospect I'm glad I volunteered for the later flight and received the travel credit. Looks like it's time to start planning a vacation.