You see, I got off the plane in IAD and was greeted by the following scene:
About an hour before my plane landed, ALL of United's electronic systems went down. Worldwide. All of them. That meant I got off the plane, and all the flight boards were blank, just showing a United logo. Meanwhile, the line had started at customer service. I thought it was just a Dulles problem, and I'd be clever and call the customer service hotline, who promptly informed me that it was a worldwide problem. Well, OK, they can still manually board me, once I find the gate. I found an agent with a paper printout, but she didn't have Buenos Aires on it. The best advice she could give me was "walk down that way, I think there's one board that's half-working...".
On the way to the board, I encountered a Red Carpet Club. Saved! They'd know what was going on. Unfortunately, "what was going on" was that my flight was delayed from 10pm to 10am the next day. OK, no problem; they'll put me up in a hotel for the night. Except that the hotel vouchers ALSO depend on the same systems that took down all the flight boards, so I'm not going anywhere. In the RCC, I overheard an irate man on the phone with United reservations about rebooking: "What do you mean you can't do anything for at least three hours?!"
Lovely. Time to see if anyone in DC wants to hang out. Except that on this trip, I didn't exactly bring the A-team of electronics; more like the practice squad. So instead of a working cell phone, I have my old phone without a SIM in it. Android contact sync + Gmail "call phone" feature to the rescue! Managed to get Dustin on the phone and (because he is a gentleman and a scholar) convince him to drive out from the District and rescue me at Dulles.
As I was sitting out on the curb for his arrival around 11p EDT, there was an announcement over the PA from United: "Our systems are still down and we don't know when they'll be back up. At this point we suggest you go home and come back in the morning." That's fantastic for people who live in the area; I don't know what the people who were transiting, but weren't lucky enough to know people in the area, did. Probably slept in the airport...
On the way in, Dustin gave me a nice driving tour of all the attractions:
Capitol Hill
Washington Monument
Union Station
Personal chaffeur
After that, we grabbed some dinner, then headed back to catch some Z's. Dustin was kind enough to drive me out to the Dulles bus at 7am (where's my $6, United?). Got to Dulles, got my boarding pass re-marked for today...and proceeded to wait some more. I've just gotten word that the flight has been delayed from 10am to 11am, with a terminal change, so I suppose I'd better get moving...
No comments:
Post a Comment