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Aah, the Joys of International Travel!
March 19-20, 2005
It's 10:20 P.M. on Sunday, March 20, and we're here in Fukuoka, Japan . The 7.0 earthquake that struck six miles offshore at 11:00 this morning had no negative impact on Sky and Joa - except scaring them, since they were standing on a stone pier directly in front of the epicenter when it hit. The getting here is worth the retelling, though:
We arrived at LAX at 7:30 a.m., with plenty of time to catch our 10:15 American Eagle flight to San Jose , from which we were to fly to Narita , Japan . When the original "Flight Delayed" sign came up, we weren't too worried, since there was a 45 minute lay-over in San Jose and we had been assured that the American Airlines flight would wait. When the next "delay" message was posted, we became concerned, especially when they started assuring flyers that the NEXT flight from San Jose would be only two hours later. Our problem was that we needed to take a limo from Narita Airport to Haneda Airport (a 75 minute trip), and we only had 2 1/2 hours from the Narita landing to the flight from Haneda to Fukuoka .
American Eagle attendants got right onto the problem. They cancelled our AA tickets from San Jose , and booked us onto a United direct flight from LAX to Narita. Since the United flight was leaving 15 minutes from that time, they had their tram service whisk us over to the United terminal.
Unfortunately, the bus driver took us to the United DOMESTIC terminal, at the far end of LAX from the Tom Bradley International terminal, where the flight was waiting. Abandoned there by the AA driver, we were informed in no uncertain terms by a United employee that it was American Airlines' problem, not theirs. She told us we could walk over two terminals to the Continental terminal and catch another shuttle bus back out to the American Eagle terminal (you can't get there on foot).
As we were walking from the United terminal, a TSA security guard told everyone to freeze in place. We stood there for 5 minutes, until the lockdown was lifted. Continuing on to the Continental terminal, we waited 25 minutes more until a shuttle took us back out to the American Eagle terminal.
There, we found a very distraught AE employee, standing with a supervisor who told us the young lady had offered to drive around the airport, looking for us. How could we be upset with someone who took her personal screw-up so hard? Since the United flight was by now long gone, American Airlines cut new tickets for an outbound JAL flight (this time, we had 55 minutes). Of course, our bag was in the clutches of AA, but we were assured that it would arrive at Narita before we did. Taking the shuttle bus back to the AA terminal (still a domestic terminal), we walked through the rain to Tom Bradley International.
When we reached the JAL terminal, it was like walking onto another planet. The people were all very solicitous, and actually seemed to know what they were talking about. When they saw we had a connecting flight from Haneda to Fukuoka on All Nippon Airlines, they gave me an 800 number to call so I could arrange a later flight. The flight ANA put us on would be cutting it close, but we could make it with about 30 minutes to spare. By now, it was 1:15 p.m., and time to board our outbound flight.
Unfortunately, upon boarding the JAL flight, we were informed that we would be waiting for two more passengers to arrive. We waited 35 minutes. So much for our cushion. Regardless, flying aboard JAL was very pleasant, and we figured we could call ANA upon arrival and take the next flight from Haneda if we ran too late.
Upon arriving in Narita, we made our way to the JAL baggage claim counter, and explained the baggage situation to a very nice young man. He called AA, was informed that they knew nothing about our luggage except that it was somewhere on its way from San Jose to Narita. He wrote a JAL baggage claim slip for me, and assured me that JAL would get the luggage to Sky and Joa's in Fukuoka upon its arrival. Since it was now only an hour before our Haneda flight was due to depart for Fukuoka (and we were still 75 minutes from that airport), he called ANA for us, trying to get us onto the next flight.
Sadly, he was informed that the next ANA flight would be the following morning. Deflated, I asked where the cheapest hotels were, preparing to spend the night (without luggage) before flying to our destination.
Here is where this young man became my hero. He quickly spoke to his supervisor, called the JAL domestic terminal, and put us on the last JAL flight of the day from Narita to Fukuoka – scheduled to leave in 10 minutes. With us in tow, he dashed from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal in a manner reminiscent of the OJ Simpson commercial. He spoke quickly to the half-dozen security checkpoints we passed, and had us waived past everything except the baggage x-ray. We reached the domestic ticket counter, where he quickly explained the situation to the four girls at the counter. One of them called AA, who gave them some grief but approved the switch, while another was madly typing in the information and a third was calling the shuttle bus, asking them to hold the bus for us. We then followed the fourth ticket agent in a headlong run down about 500 yards of terminal tunnels, finally reaching the bus and being taken to our waiting flight.
As Paul Harvey would say, "And now, for the rest of the story." With all of this craziness, we made it to Fukuoka only 20 minutes later than we were originally scheduled to do. Sky and Joa, who had gotten our first “flight change” message through Marcus (another story, I understand), were waiting at the nearby ANA terminal for the flight from Haneda that they were expecting us to be on - due to arrive 10 minutes after we arrived on the JAL flight. Our luggage is now in Narita, but “because of the earthquake” it can't be delivered until Wednesday morning (it's now Monday night). I sit here, while my clothes wash, wearing Sky's t-shirt and sweats, reminding myself that adversity is good for the soul. Polly can attest that I stayed calm and humble through it all, which undoubtedly helped make people willing to try a bit harder to be helpful in the face of so much FUBAR.