Hurry Up and Wait....and Wait.....

This photo, from the rockin blog London Photos perfectly captures an autumn morning in London. This weather also meant it was the first day of the year to drag the uniform winter coat along. I try to delay the onset of coat wearing as long as possible, but dear readers ,winter is a comin'.

Perfectly lovely flight, made even better by bring my birthday trip. Not because it is my birthday, but for the extra pay that accompanies working a holiday. We are paid 'holiday' pay for working any of the following holidays; New years day, Easter, August Bank Holiday, Christmas and our respective birthday. Often 'holiday' pay trips go senior and you cannot hold them in your schedule as all the senior gals like the money too. Your birthday is the one holiday you can always seem to work. Yay for the extra pay!!

Boo for the one hour wait in the immigration queue at Dulles airport ( see a theme here at Dulles?). Nothing like waiting behind Qatar (great color uniforms), Lufthansa and United crew times 2. At least the air was not filled with the noxious fumes of last week. The final joy was when the purser and I reached the front of the customs line ,no one was behind us and she closed her lane, snapping that she was closed. Thanks!! My impartial survey of Los Angeles, New York, Boston, San Fran and Chicago reveals Dulles customs and immigration to be the rudest and meanest and slowest port of entry...Blue ribbon for IAD. You can share it with the TSA there,don't feel slighted.

Dulles Redux

After fumegate when we arrived at Dulles the other night, I thought my opinions of the airport could not get worse. Silly rabbit, of course they could!!!

As our crew bus approached Dulles Airport, we saw that there were literally hundreds and hundreds of people outside the airport. From a distance, we assumed they were press waiting for the arrival of some person of note.Who was it , we wondered?? George Bush, Britney Spears,Paris Hilton??? Traffic was clogged, each cars occupants panicking at missing their flight.

One of the quick thinking crew members called the inflight office to get the scoop. There was an evacuation of the main terminal due to a suspicious package at baggage claim. Everyone had to leave the terminal ( and this is during the rush hour of afternoon departures to Europe). The people looked like they were waiting for a concert on the grassy embankments, except they all had luggage. Hundreds of crew members milled around outside, smoking or talking on mobiles, or both.

Finally after about 1 hour they reopened the terminal, the crew security line was about 200 thick. I think we could have done speed dating as we winded our way through , think of the possibilities!! At long last we made it to the plane, with only a 30 minute delay.

I do think that the joker that left a bag there should be publically flogged and forced to apologize to everyone he or she inconvienanced. But it did add a little interest to an otherwise ordinary day.

Queues and Fumes

The theme of todays flight was fumes.....Bad fumes!!!!! These fumes were brought to my nose by the following individuals 2J who reeked of booze,the unnamed male crew member that farted throughout crew rest ( no more curry for you before break...please??) and the male crew member that clearly left his deoderant at home,and his soap. Oh the humanity people!!!

You would have thought that at flights end there would be sweet relief, but during the 1 hour wait at crew immigration at Dulles there was a smell of kerosene that was so strong that firefighters came past us wearing gas masks. Of course immigration had cleared 3 widebody flights passengers while we waited.....And waited....And inhaled the stink......