The Transfer Tango
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Rome,
Italy
Sunday, July 2, 2006
Part of the traveling experience is getting stuck and melting down as you watch your travel plans unravel before your eyes, knowing that you are completely helpless to do anything about it. You just sit and take it as the man, the man of course being the airline industry, screws you.
If you are already a lunatic, or have a burning desire to fall into the depths of insanity, I encourage you to route your flight's through Rome's quagmire of an airport, Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport. On our way to Athens, according to our plans, we would fly from Venice to Rome, transfer planes, and have the day in Athens prior to flying to Mykonos the next day. Everything was going great, we even were upgraded to first class on our flight out of Venice. But then, upon arriving in Rome, everything began to go terribly, terribly wrong. We should have recognized the signs, a leaking roof, no concept of a line, crappy food...but it didn't hit us until we attempted to complete the simple task of transferring from one flight to another.
I present to you, The Transfer Tango:
Step One, upon arrival go to your gate and realize you only have a ticket, not a boarding pass.
Step Two, shuffle down to the nearest airline desk for Air One (who was operating our flight, along with Aegon Air and EAS), only to be told they couldn't help since they were the Terminal A representative. Off to Terminal B we went.
Step Three, at the Terminal B desk we were told all we had to do was go to our gate. So with a twirl, we were back at square one.
Step Four, back at the gate the gate-nazi informs us that we could not board our plane without a boarding pass. To the Alitalia desk we were sent.
Step Five, at the Alitalia desk we were told no, it wasn't their flight and we needed to go to the Aegeon Air desk (which they then told us doesn't exist).
Step Six, back at our gate, the Nazi barked "go to our desk", pointing down the hall.
Step Seven, down the hall we were back at the Terminal A desk, who of course ignored us for a bit before telling us to go to the transfer desk near gate B1.
Step Eight, with a sprint to B1 we are happily informed we are on the flight, and to go back to our gate.
Step Nine, excited and exhausted we appear back at the gate where we are told that we are not on the flight because we do not have a boarding pass. Instead, we watch our flight leave us behind with tickets in hand.
Step Ten, we are told we need to exit the airport, go back to the departure hall entrance, and rebook our flight.
Step Eleven, in the departure hall we are shuffled between the Air One, Aegeon Air and EAS desk before Aegon tells us that since we missed our flight we will be fined. We are put on stand-by for the 8pm flight (it is currently 10 am). The next open flight to Athens is not until three days later.
Step Twelve, we run frantically around looking for another flight or even destination. Getting laughed at by the Tren Italia man when Kara asked him for two tickets to Athens, Greece also didn't help.
Step Thriteen, we return to the Aegeon desk and, miraculously they have a change of heart. No fine and we are on the 8 pm flight. Now all we had to do was kill 10 hours in the airport.
To celebrate we dined on crappy airport food that smelled like the bottom of the Mississippi River, enjoyed a cold XXXX Australian beer, and then sneaked into the Hilton Hotel and relaxed on their lobby's overstuffed leather couches and air-conditioned climate. Finally, at 9pm that night, we were on our way to Athens.
The moral of the story: don't eat microwaved airport pasta with squid.
