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Thursday, May 05, 2005
ARRGGH!!!! Chicago again!??
Gotta write a lovely mail to my travel department, for giving me such a lovely itinerary for the return flight.

Due to a delay in Malta, i checked in at Frankfrut about 5 minutes before departure. Should've known then that it won't be a simple relaxing flight back. It got a lot worse.

Please let me never ever go near Chicago O'Hare airport anymore.

On the way back, the flight from Frankfrut to Chicago touched down just about 10 minutes before THE BOARDING TIME of my next leg back to Seattle. I told the air steward about it, and got "upgraded" to business class for about 15mins prior to landing, so that i can leave the plane quickly.

Rushed through to the Immigration and Customs section. Got into a lane where a Chinese National was visiting Chicago for some business thingy. The immigration officer, who was really exceptionally chatty, went on and on and on about this Chinese's "refugee" status stated in his passport. The funny thing is that he looks like one of the Jackie Chan crew, one of those that you know are in the team that Jackie manages, but is never ever an A-star actor. Oh well...

Then when this immigration officer went through my documents, he shouted to three counters across the left that i am a AV person in MSFT. ARRGGH... by this time, it was already my departure time.

So.. off i ran to the United Airlines counter. The staff knew that i was on the flight, and that it wasnt my fault in being late and have prepared a a new ticket for another flight, about 50 minutes later. You'd thought that it would be smooth sailing from now on.

NO! *seems like i'm writing like my wife*

I needed to go to another terminal via the skytrain (waiting time: 10 minutes), get a new boarding pass (waiting time: 10 minutes), go through security, got selected for total security check (total time: 15 minutes) *OMG* at 15 minutes before departure. It was looking really bad when i finally went through the security check. I was at the H1 gate, and my flight was at gate H11. It's a loooooooooong way to go. Ok... so I ran like mad... JUUUUUSSTT got to the gate where the ground crew actually *APPLAUDED* and shouted "Mr Poon.. you made it!!" at seeing my appearance before the departure. I was so out of breath that all i could do was nod my head in recognition of it.

Found my seat, docked my carry-on, and finally got a breather! Of course, i was the last passenger to get on the plane.

The main complain would be the Frankfrut-Chicago leg. There was no way that anyone could transfer from an international flight to a domestic flight in another terminal within 20 mintues.
 
posted by Jonathan at 1:25 AM | Permalink |


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