Sunday, June 14 – Day 1, Part 1 Training

Up, Up, and Away!

The bags are packed, I'm ready to go, and some other awesome lyrics may be inserted here. It's game-time at Reagan National Airport. The four five hour flight to Phoenix departs in about half an hour. The airport is packed, per usual. I've been offered an opportunity to give up my seat for about $350, to get on the next flight that leaves in four hours. Getting a free voucher for a future flight sounds like a great idea, however, my final destination is not Phoenix, and my flight was much more than $350. When you get a flight 7 days in advance, you're not usually buying the ticket at fair market value, big surprise.

Time to board!

Update:
The flight between DC and Phoenix was over-booked. Oh, and over-weight, too. I've never heard of a plane being over-weighted. Once the plane was packed full of passengers, the flight attendants came onto the PA system a dozen or more times asking for more volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for the travel vouchers mentioned earlier. The one flight attendant even threatened using a lottery system if there were not enough volunteers. The lottery system would work like this: the more recently you bought your ticket, expensive or cheap, the more likely your name would be to get drawn in the lottery. That means, if your ticket was bought a few days ago and your final destination is Phoenix, you're in trouble. In his words “you better just give up your seat now.” I did buy my tickets just a few days ago, but since Phoenix is not my final stop, I had a good deal of hope my name would be spared from the lottery. After another 20 minutes or so sitting at the gate, we finally had enough volunteers, sans lottery. Sitting in the gate for nearly 45 minutes, waiting for people to give up their seats, I thought, “Yay, finally we will get going!” It wasn't over yet! Three of the last people to offer up their seats actually re-boarded the flight! Apparently, there was some confusion regarding how many folks really needed to bump to another flight. After hearing some bizarre sounds and high-pitched squeals coming form the aircraft, we set off down the tarmac and set off towards the skies.