United Airlines Sucks! And, How to Feel Like a Foreign Criminal in your Own Country

So we just got back from Budapest. An amazing city and one of the most beautiful city centers I've ever experienced. The Danube cuts right through the middle and the bridge-lined riverfront displays gorgeous architecture after architecture. John and I shot almost four hours worth of footage which I will comment on later, especially my experience with Petofi Csarnok and Balkan Folk Dance Night. You can see photos at my Flickr site with long descriptions. Click on the title of this post and it will take you to Flickr.

The nadir of the trip was both travel days. We flew United/Lufthansa and it was torturous. Granted, we didn't make the reservations, they were made by the man in charge of the film for whom John was scouting. As soon as we got the reservations several weeks before we left, we got on the horn and tried to get seating reservations. We were told then and when we went on line (where we couldn't even bring up the reservation despite the fact that it was in our name) that no seat assignments would be available until the day of travel. The people on the phone told us that no overseas flight ever gives seat assignments before the day of, which is a total lie. This is the 6th time I've traveled to Europe and the first time I've gone to the airport having no idea where I was sitting.

So, on both trips, our seats ended up being the last seats on the plane. On the way back, our flight from Washington Dulles to San Diego, we couldn't even get aisle seats, so we were in the aisle and center of the last seat on the plane. This was not for lack of trying. Trying not to get discouraged, we dutifully called from Hungary, went on line, and tried to go to a ticket office in Budapest. John ended up calling the United States from our SIM-card enhanced cell phone and they told him the same thing - no seat assignments will be given until you are at the airport.

Okay...this is where I get really pissed. We showed up at the airport at 5:30 in the morning the day we traveled home, and got our seat assignments for all of the flights. Like I said, our flight from Dulles gave us the worst possible seats on the plane. I ask, "is there anything else available?" The agent says, "No, these are the last two available seats. All the rest have been reserved."

My next logical quesion, "How is it that they've been reserved? We've told that we couldn't get seat reservations until we checked in at the airport and that flight is more than 18 hours away. Are you telling me that everyone but us has already checked in for the flight 18 hours ahead of time?"

She says, "No, these seats have been reserved beforehand."

And so we get into a circular argument here about who is lying to whom? How could they all be reserved beforehand if you can't get seats until you show up at the airport? We were told this on every flight we checked in for - everyone but us seemed to reserve beforehand. How are we the only ones unable to do this? I shouldn't have to pay the same amount of money for a ticket and be shoved in the back by the restrooms. The legroom in the back is not as good either, so John was stuffed into a seat with his knees pressed against the seat in front of him. United did nothing to help us and even seemed to intimate that it was our fault that we had such bad seats.

The flight to San Diego was particularly frustrating when the flight attendant actually admitted that they didn't have enough meals for sale to feed the last five rows of the airplane. How is that possible? Because we're in the last five rows, we are not entitled to eat? United doesn't seem to think so.

In conclusion of my flight experience, I have to say, DO NOT FLY UNITED! They are a shabby excuse for an airline with terrible customer service and circular logic in their answers that brings up constant inconsistencies. I am completely dissatisfied in every way and would gladly pay more money for an airline that will treat me with respect. This isn't the first time I've had problems with them, but these are definitely the most heinous.

That being said...the other heinous part of traveling these days is customs and security. I was treated with kindness and respect by all of the security and customs officials in Hungary and Germany. We get back to the United States, however, and I am suddenly thrust into a long, slow line and treated like a criminal in my own country. Dulles has no organization whatsoever. After passing through immigration, we were thrown into a hall to recheck our baggage. There were people packed wall-to-wall and screaming at you to stay in line (what line?). We couldn't get to the recheck spot they screamed at us to go to without cutting around people who had already dropped off their bags, and we were screamed at by another agent wearing sunglasses (??) as we tried to give him our bag. At that point we waited over half an hour to get through two operating security tables with no line up to the front, everyone just shoving and squeezing through the crowds. TSA agents were screaming at us in some sort of half-English pidgin slang and shoving us into various lines as we got within spitting distance of the conveyor belts. People were crying and hyperventilating and I kept thinking that I had an easier time at customs when I flew into Mexico.

It's a hideous experience and a true equalizer as the ladies who lunch in their pearls and heels were in the same shoving, heaving, sweaty line as poor college students who spent the whole fall backpacking through Europe. All of us equally pissed off.

We got to the gate just as it was boarding and we were spitting at each other and stinky and tired and wholly unhappy. Nothing like reentering your own country to make any sort of travel wholly undesireable. We should have stayed in Europe.

And that's my diatribe. We reallyl did have a lovely time. I will recount it later, but I had to get this off my chest first.