ATL

My return trip days usually start earlier.  Instead of a 7am flght from Stockholm or Helsinki, or an hour's drive from Zaltbommel to Schipohl, I had a 12:30pm flight from Vienna to Paris.  The upside of not having to greet the wait staff of the Roomz Hotel at 5:30am is that I don't get home tonight until late.

The CAT station near Landstrasse (Wien mitte) doesn't look like much on the surface.

Vienna's City-Air-Train (CAT) makes perfect sense for me, given the location of my hotel (Roomz at Gasometer) and the training facility.  I took the U3 to LandStrasse, walk around the corner, and catch the train.  There's even a set of airline check-in desks at Landstrasse for Star Alliance (Austrian, Lufthansa, United, etc.) customers.  You can check in for your flight, drop off your bag, and go straight to your gate.  Being on Air France/Delta (SkyTeam), I couldn't avail myself of this option, unfortunately.  The train ride is 16 minutes nonstop to the airport.

The CAT is a typical inter-city double-decker configuration-great for watching the city go by!

Arriving at VIE via train, it's a journey up a couple of escalators to the departure concourse.  Check-in for Air France was a smooth process, in spite of it being a Saturday.  Saturdays mean fewer road warriors and more families/casual travelers.  These are the folks who don't know how airports work and tend to slow down the overall process getting to and on a plane.  Like many European airports, VIE is one giant shopping mall.  Security screening is at the gate, enabling passengers who arrive early to move freely about and shop.  I picked up some chocolates in one of the shops for the family, then parked myself at a cafe' across from my gate.  VIE has free wi-fi, so my cappuccino at €5 didn't seem so bad. With e-mail and such checked, I crossed the hall and got in the screening line. This is where the influx of casual travelers often bogs down the system, and today was no exception.  The guy who didn't take off his belt, or the older woman who had three bags, one containing a liter of water, or the dad who didn't take his laptop out of the bag all exacerbate the process.  Finally through screening, I dashed downstairs to the bathroom, then watched as the Airbus A319 arrived at the gate.  As the plane parked, I noticed that two of the ground crew pushed a portable stairway to the rear door of the plane as a gate agent maneuvered the standard jetway to the front door.  The jetway blocked my view of that stairway, but I did see a vam pull up to the bottom, then zoom away.  What an imagination-stirring moment! Was the mystery passenger who deplaned from the rear extra security for 9/11? A government official? An undercover agent? I've read too many Ludlum novels lately.

The flight to CDG pushed back a few minutes late, but the pilot made up the time in-flight.  The flight was full, but the A319 isn't too uncomfortable even when filled six-across in each row.  A relatively short 1:17 and we were parked at a gate at CDG, in Terminal 2D.

I don't understand Charles De Gaulle Airport, Paris, France.  I don't understand why an Air France 747 coming from Atlanta parks away from the gates and you have to take a bus to the terminal, but an A319 coming from Vienna just pulls up.  I don't understand why I can walk from 2F to 2E when coming from the US, but I have to take a bus to go from 2D to 2E when arriving from Vienna.  Maybe there's a method in the madness, but I don't see it.  Still, once safely past security screening, CDG is pretty much any other airport in the world.  There are more power outlets for computer users, however. 

The B767-300ER which would take us to Atlanta was parked at the gate, and the agent was making preparatory announcements when I walked up at 3pm (boarding at 3:15pm, for a 4:10pm departure).  Being firmly in SkyTeam territory at CDG, the gates were organized in Delta style, with a separate boarding line for SkyPriority passengers.  I ended up being first in the SkyPriority line.  A security officer scanned my passport and asked me the usual questions about who packed my luggage.  When I presented my boarding pass to the gate agent, I was pleasantly surprised to discover I'd been upgraded!  Nine hours makes for a long flight, and it's always better to sit in one of the comfier chairs, drink champagne, and plug in the laptop.  One of the things that makes me look past some of the problem flights with Delta is how flight crews treat passengers in First/Business Class.  They take good care of you, from that initial glass of champagne to the snack towards the end of the flight.

Being upgraded today was doubly special, because I got to watch the pilot of "Treme" on the individual entertainment system.  Delta has a deal with HBO, so it's more than just movies and tunes offered.   For a homesick New Orleanian, it was nice to spend the first couple of hours of the trip watching a tale from home.  The meal choices for this flight were pretty standard:  steak, chicken, and a cold plate.  The steak is very predictable and (by my standards) always overcooked, but I just wasn't in the mood for chicken parm, so steak it was.  The starter was a trio of roasted pepper soup, smoked salmon, and tomato slices with mozzarella.  This was followed by a green salad with balsamic vinegar dressing.  All the while, the champagne flowed freely.  I switched to a California Zinfandel for the steak, which helped the overcooked filet go down.  Dessert was an interesting presentation: they put everything on a cart, brought it up to you, and let you choose.  The options were the usuals, a cheese/fruit plate, lemon tart, and vanilla ice cream with either berry or chocolate sauce.  I had the ice cream with berry sauce and the lemon tart, along with a glass of port.  By now, the effects of the wine and the Tylenol PM I took were kicking in, and I dozed off, waking up as we passed over Newfoundland, Canada.  I was greeted by the Purser, a charming lady named Laurel, who offered me a warm chocolate chip cookie and something to drink. 

The "snack" service was a choice of a cold shrimp salad or a hot turkey sandwich.  I went with the sandwich.  The meat and cheese are good, even if I'm not a big fan of the seeded ciabatta bread they serve it on.  When I asked if there was any of the champagne left, I was presented with a flute of bubbly (not that the Riesling on the menu would have been a bad alternative, mind you). 

I've been able to stay much more occupied on this trip because my Acer Aspire OneFinally netbook is so easy to manipulate in-flight.  The small size of the netbook makes it easy to just slip next to me when a tray with food arrives.  Because there's power here in the biz-class seats, I can just fold the netbook up, then pull it out when the tray is cleared.  That's enabled me to write a lot more than I usually do! 

Around nine hours and fifteen minutes after leaving CDG, we landed at ATL.  Deplaning and passport control was uneventful, but the stack-up at the Customs check, after you claim checked luggage, was unreal.  The process of clearing customs, re-checking my bag, and getting past TSA took over an hour.  I had to get a boarding pass for the ATL-MSY flight, so a trip to the SkyClub on "A" was in order.  Fifteen minutes later, I'd shaken off the after effects of being behind a complaining woman from North Carolina in the TSA line with a Sweetwater 420.  It was time to go home. 

ATL-MSY flights always are choppy, no matter what time of day.  White wine helped.  Fortunately, it's not a long flight, and tonight it was uneventful.  Home, albeit for less than a day, and off to SFO tonight!

Ferrari and Porsche on display at CPH for some sort of contest.

Heading home after two weeks in Europe. Last week was a class in Helsinki, so the outbound flight was MSY-DTW-AMS-HEL. I took an SAS hop flight from Vantaa Airport in Helsinki to Copenhagen, then flying home from here. My class was actually in a small suburb north of the city proper, so I had to rent a car this week to drive to the office. The return trip to the airport was about 35km. I had the added duty of returning the rental car this morning, so I left about 7am, and was done with the Avis desk just before 8am.

Copenhagen Lufthaven (CPH) is Every Airport In Europe. The ticket desks are numbered, and monitors tell you which range of numbers is for your airline as you enter. After dropping off the car at Terminal 3 (which is where I arrived from HEL last Saturday), I walked over to Terminal 2, just like the monitors told me to do. The Delta section was well-organized, and they led me to the "elite" line. Like the Dutch, the Danes actually interview you as they check your passport for departure. Once that was done, on to actual check-in, which had no one waiting. The Delta ticket agent was a charming lady who got my boarding passes as we casually chatted. She directed me to security and the lounge, and I was done.

Security at CPH was standard, and no removal of shoes. I'm guessing I'll have to do that at the gate. They did search my bag, though, not surprising, given how many cables I carry. Security cleared, I made my way through the obligatory duty-free extravangaza, down a corridor lined with banks, souvenier shops, and upscale shops like Gucci, etc. The SkyClub here is a common lounge for a number of airlines run by a company called Novia. Their wireless is a disaster-I got on for all of three minutes, but at least that was enough time to see e-mail and no there are no crises in North America. What the lounge lacks in wi-fi, they make up for in food. This is Denmark, so there's no shortage of Danish pastry, and a good coffee system that makes a decent cappuccino. Now it's off to the gate.

DL69 - CPH-ATL

Even though I was in Business Elite class (up front in the comfy chairs), I didn't pull out the laptop. If you're going to eat, navigating the computer and the food tray is just too difficult. This flight was on a B767-300ER, and I was in 3A. I prefer window seats so I don't have to get up to let the other person out to the toilet. It was warm on the plane, a good indication that spring is here. Front-cabin fliers are offered orange juice or champagne (and when flying from Europe, it's truly Champagne, not sparkly from another country) while getting settled and looking over the dinner menu. Just before takeoff, your dinner order is taken. Delta offers three entrees, and today's choices were chicken parmesan, file with peppercorn sauce, and a cold roast beef plate. The starters were smoked salmon and hummus, a lettuce-and-tomato salad, and cream of mushroom soup. Neither entree moved the earth for me, so I went with the steak.

Right after takeoff, the flight attendants pass out hot towels, then little dishes of nuts, while taking your first drink order.

Not long after that, the starters come out. The soup was quite good.

The steak, for once was medium-rare-to-medium, not too overcooked. I had a nice Argentine white, a Torrantes, before the meal and with the soup, and a Chilean red with the steak.

I usually get the cheese plate and some port for dessert, but today I went for the ice cream with berry sauce and whipped cream.

After the ice cream, I had some dessert wine, a couple of glasses of Semillion.

With the meal cleared away and the episode of "The Tudors" I had on the video system winding down, I put the seat as horizontal as I could and phased out. I got about 4.5 hours of sleep, then put the seat up and flipped through some of the HBO stuff in the video system.

About an hour out from ATL, they fed us a snack. The choices were a shrimp salad or a hot turkey-and-cheese sandwich. I had the sandwich, and it was OK. I washed it down with some more of the Argentine white. Dessert was a chocolate truffle.

Pretty soon it was final approach, and that means putting away everything. I read a bit, filled out the customs card, and we were on the ground. The plane parked at E6, and I was through CBP (Customs & Border Protection) in no time flat. Now waiting for my 8:15pm flight to home!

.

Charles De Gaulle Airport, Paris

February 9-10, 2010, were bad-weather days in the city of Atlanta, GA. The "snowpocalypse" that gripped the east coast for more than a week by then had come to Peachtree Street. Worse yet, it had come to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, ATL. Several thousand flights were cancelled from Tuesday to Thursday of that week, and things were still pretty chaotic by the time I was to leave for Zuerich on Saturday the 13th.

I booked an afternoon MSY-ATL flight for that Saturday, a bit of a departure from my usual get-out-early strategy. There's usually an 11:30am or so flight to ATL that I'll book, but this day, I took one with a departure time of 1:50pm. I was very lucky in this regard, because the first two flights of the day were cancelled, because the planes weren't at MSY. The mess the snow and weather made of Delta's largest hub placed a lot of their equipment out of position on Friday and Saturday. The flight I booked was coming from ATL just two hours before my flight, doing a fairly standard ATL-MSY-ATL run.

While there was lots of chaos around me, with Delta ticket agents furiously trying to re-book people from Friday as well as the two early flights that day, I was able to check in and wait in the SkyClub with little delay out front. The flight was 15 minutes delayed in taking off, but it was the 30 minute delay trying to find a gate to park at and someone to open up the plane that created all sorts of problems for me. The flight parked on "C" concourse, and I had less than 15 minutes to get from "C" out to "E" where my ATL-ZRH flight as parked. Naturally, I missed boarding by about ten minutes.

I don't know if I was just fortunate to have an efficient and sympathetic gate agent because of my Platinum status, but I like to think he would be nice enough to take care of anyone in this predicament the same way, but I was quickly re-routed to Zuerich via Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport. Air France had a 6:30pm flight to CDG, and then I could easly connect from there on a commuter jet to ZRH.

So, in this case, the lemonade made from this mess of a flight day tasted pretty good. Air France flights to CDG always have better food than Delta flights to Europe. Walking across Paris (which is what it feels like at CDG) to get from the international terminal to the hop-flights isn't all that bad after sitting down for eight hours. The only serious downside to missing the Delta flight was that my bag didn't get transferred to the AF flight; it came in on the Sunday evening flight and was delivered to my hotel at some point while I was teaching Monday. It's been a while since I had to teach in my sweats, but the class had a sense of humor.

The return journey at the end of the week was quite uneventful, and that was just fine by me! The bus line that ran right past the hotel went all the way to ZRH, so I took the bus at 7:30am and was at the airport for 8am. Check-in went smoothly, and I slept through the main meal, not waking up until they were offering me that microwave cheese pizza Delta serves as a snack about an hour before landing. I had on my "Saints Super Bowl Champs" t-shirt on the trip, so I cleared ICE with ease. The ATL-MSY flight was a comfortable hour in first class, which was welcome after the long ride in a coach seat.

Looking forward to my next trip to Switzerland.

.