ORD Dash

April 7, 2009

I flew out of SFO to Buffalo on Sunday morning for an all-day work meeting that was taking place on Monday. I used points to upgrade to first class (whee!) and flew through Chicago O'Hare (ORD) with relatively no drama on Sunday. Despite having to walk from Terminal C, through B, and finally to F, I had plenty of time between flights, so I even got a bag of famous Garrett's "The Mix" popcorn (caramel crisp and cheesecorn...yum!) in Terminal B.

I had a quiet Sunday night with room service and some cheesy movies. I tried to make myself fall asleep early (8 PM PST) so that I could be refreshed for our early meeting. I woke up at 7 AM EST (4 AM PST...ewww!) and the meeting was really productive. We even ended on time at 3 PM.

From there, I headed to the Buffalo airport with a co-worker to catch our 5:05 PM flight from Buffalo to Chicago. All was well, and "on time". I purchased a couple bottles of the Original Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings sauce to bring home. Yum!

Once boarded, the captain announced that we had a 5-10 minute delay so that a mechanic could come aboard and fix a seat that wasn't staying upright (violation of FAA regulations). It took over an hour for the mechanic to show up (shift change!). People were freaking out about their connecting flights out of ORD, being mean to the pursor, calling up United and demanding being switched to another flight, etc. etc. A couple sitting behind me got off the plane to book another set of flights through Washington, DC back to SFO (they were supposed to be on the same flight as me out of ORD). Adults can be so bitchy.

By the time we were in the air, we were over an hour delayed. Which was not a good sign considering my connecting flight to SFO only allowed one hour between flights. We made up some time in the air, and the pursor gave me some information (we were arriving in Gate C31 at 6:35 PM, my SFO flight was taking off at B6 at 6:47 PM). I had 12 minutes to get from our gate to the next, and a lot of ground to cover. The pursor estimated that if I "hustled", I could be there in 7 minutes, but it was unlikely that they would allow me on the plane.

My co-worker wasn't even going to try. I decided to make a go for it.

Once the door opened and I was off, I had the following realizations in the ensuing 5 minutes:

• I was sitting in 1A, so I was the first one off the plane, and it was imperative to be the first one off the plane.
• It is incredibly difficult to sprint while dragging a rolling bag. I kicked my bag a lot.
• Going from a complete non-action dehydrated state to full-on-mad-woman-sprint is incredibly difficult on your body. I've been running 20-25 miles/week and I was still in no shape to be sprinting through an airport. My lungs were in shock.
• People don't like to move out of your way despite the mad-woman-sprinting-through-the-airport appearance. Shouting for people to get out of your way also does not help.
• It's really hard to sprint up and down escalators.
• C31 is fricking far from B6. Take a look at the terminal map here.

I made it to B6 in about 5 minutes. The gate door was closed, they were finished checking people in. In between panting and wanting to puke, I managed to communicate that I had just landed and wanted to know if I could get on the plane. Turns out the plane door was about to be shut but hadn't yet, the only seat left on the plane was my first class seat (they had given all the other seats away), and they let me on!

I proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes or so choking down water (my throat was wrecked from the dryness and subsequent sprint) and cooling down.

We landed in SFO early (~ 9 PM) and it was so nice to be home. I made it home before those other fly-through-DC suckers did! Go airline karma!