Air Chance
We were told Air France was unreliable. I don't know if it is or not, but we didn't exactly have the best experience trying to get home. Our itinerary was Cape Town -> Johannesburg -> Paris -> San Francisco.
From Cape Town to Johannesburg, everything was fine. Nationwide Air told us they could check our bags all the way through to San Francisco. Right as we were boarding, we were handed new claim tickets and told our flight to Paris had been canceled. In Johannesburg, we went to the Air France counter where we noticed all the Air France flights were canceled. Apparently the crew was on strike. The ticketing woman rebooked us on flights through JFK (after making fun of our ignorance of the strike), but since overseas flights only take off at night in Johannesburg(?!?!?), we'd have to spend the night there. Air France even gave us a hotel room. But then that's where the confusion began. Supposedly there would be some shuttle which would come, but nothing happened for what felt like an hour. Suddenly a group of people started moving, so one of us ran over and found out they were leaving for the shuttle. We followed them. We had to go down an escalator so the group ended up in a single file line leaving the airport. Luggage carts can go on the escalators too! Like all airports, it seemed like the Johannesburg airport was under construction, so it was a little hard to tell where we were going. From my view from the end of the line, the line of luggage carts leaving the airport going over broken curbs and crossing streets looked pretty ridiculous. We nearly got ont he wrong shuttle since the porters were just grabbing bags to get tips, but eventually we ended up on a shuttle to our hotel. I was a little nervous on the trip because we went through some sketchy looking places and I realized the people who showed us the shuttle weren't wearing any ID, we didn't know anything about Johannesburg, and it was now past midnight! But it all turned out okay. The hotel was a nice business hotel and the staff was very friendly, even if they gave us a key to an occupied room.
The next day we left for the airport not having seen anything in Johannesburg (apparently the interesting stuff is far away and we slept too long). We made it to JFK without problems, though once again we had a middle of the night stop in Dakar which required a security check. We missed our flight in New York though because of all the time it took to get our bags, go through customs, and check in again. (This process was further complicated because Angie left her purse on the plane and had to wait for it, Greg's luggage was missing and he had to inquire about it, and I was stopped at customs for having to declare things.) The woman who checked us into our flight had pity on us and gave us good seats though. The women at the gate laughed at our tickets because they were carbon copies of handwritten tickets ("Wow, I haven't seen one of these in a long time!") But happily, a short 5 hour flight later, we were home!
Definitely, my longest travel experience to date.
From Cape Town to Johannesburg, everything was fine. Nationwide Air told us they could check our bags all the way through to San Francisco. Right as we were boarding, we were handed new claim tickets and told our flight to Paris had been canceled. In Johannesburg, we went to the Air France counter where we noticed all the Air France flights were canceled. Apparently the crew was on strike. The ticketing woman rebooked us on flights through JFK (after making fun of our ignorance of the strike), but since overseas flights only take off at night in Johannesburg(?!?!?), we'd have to spend the night there. Air France even gave us a hotel room. But then that's where the confusion began. Supposedly there would be some shuttle which would come, but nothing happened for what felt like an hour. Suddenly a group of people started moving, so one of us ran over and found out they were leaving for the shuttle. We followed them. We had to go down an escalator so the group ended up in a single file line leaving the airport. Luggage carts can go on the escalators too! Like all airports, it seemed like the Johannesburg airport was under construction, so it was a little hard to tell where we were going. From my view from the end of the line, the line of luggage carts leaving the airport going over broken curbs and crossing streets looked pretty ridiculous. We nearly got ont he wrong shuttle since the porters were just grabbing bags to get tips, but eventually we ended up on a shuttle to our hotel. I was a little nervous on the trip because we went through some sketchy looking places and I realized the people who showed us the shuttle weren't wearing any ID, we didn't know anything about Johannesburg, and it was now past midnight! But it all turned out okay. The hotel was a nice business hotel and the staff was very friendly, even if they gave us a key to an occupied room.
The next day we left for the airport not having seen anything in Johannesburg (apparently the interesting stuff is far away and we slept too long). We made it to JFK without problems, though once again we had a middle of the night stop in Dakar which required a security check. We missed our flight in New York though because of all the time it took to get our bags, go through customs, and check in again. (This process was further complicated because Angie left her purse on the plane and had to wait for it, Greg's luggage was missing and he had to inquire about it, and I was stopped at customs for having to declare things.) The woman who checked us into our flight had pity on us and gave us good seats though. The women at the gate laughed at our tickets because they were carbon copies of handwritten tickets ("Wow, I haven't seen one of these in a long time!") But happily, a short 5 hour flight later, we were home!
Definitely, my longest travel experience to date.
posted by wchien at 12:08 AM
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