Travel by Air

Business Elite ain’t first class. I learned that lesson on my trip from Washington, DC to Atlanta, a two-hour flight that left at noon. I was told that I’d be served peanuts and such on board. So I brown-bagged a tuna sandwich.

Passengers in Business Elite were a mixed bunch. There was one young man who was on his cell phone extensively when we were still on the ground, and I admit that I tried to listen in on his conversation – simply because I didn’t have the faintest idea what language he was speaking, and I was curious about that. He lapsed into English at one point, apparently when an idea was better expressed in English than in his own native tongue. The phrase he used was, “It’s not my problem!”

The flight from Atlanta to Moscow was 10 hours 20 minutes. Business Elite passengers could while away the time with personal entertainment centers. Mine was more entertaining than most. There seemed to be a disconnect between the touch-screen choices and the programs. When I chose an episode of “Cold Case,” I got a science fiction show. Pressing the screen for Food Channel, I saw rogue elephants. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out if pressing two buttons over would bring me my choice, or if skipping three might work. Finally I gave up. There were no empty seats in our section, so I was stuck where I was. Actually, I was getting tired, having convinced myself on boarding that 3:14 pm EST was 11:14 pm Moscow time, and I had better get used to that. I did, however, call the flight attendant to see the puzzle of choices on my entertainment center. After this demonstration, the steward surprised me by saying, “You can complain all night if you want.” Instead of sounding cold and harsh, he made it sound like he would welcome coming to me for anything. He went on to explain that he had just been chewed out by a surly passenger he was trying to help. He found my mild manner of complaining nicer than the “thanks” he had gotten from the other passenger. But there was nothing he could do about my problem. I wonder if Delta would be willing to give me back some of the Frequent Flyer miles I spent on this trip?

As we neared Moscow the next morning, flight information was given on our screens bilingually. No Russian, however. I learned that “Moscu” is the way to say Moscow in Spanish.

My third flight on this trip was a day later. It was an Aeroflot-Nord (i.e., Aeroflot North) flight to Ekaterinburg. My ticket, unfortunately, had been issued to a Mr. Shirley Timashev – an honest mistake, and an understandable one, since women’s last names in Russian always end in an A. But instead of taking the name Timasheva, I had literally taken my husband’s name. So I had some difficulty getting through airport security dressed as a woman instead of as a man.

Compounding the problem was my passport, which had been issued to a Shirley Hayes. So the name on the ticket didn’t match the name on the passport, unless you knew to look on the last page for a change in registration. I don’t think the screener had ever seen a case like mine. I think she decided to let me through on the theory that a mere Crazy American is not likely to be a terrorist.

I had gotten to the airport nearly two hours early, and I had to wait for my flight to be called for check-in. When it was announced, I went to the proper counter and waited. And waited. Other passengers came and stood behind me. We waited. And waited. One person expressed some irritation, saying “Aeroflot!” in a way that sounded like an expletive. It was a quarter of an hour before a woman showed up behind the counter. What I found remarkable was that all this time there was an Aeroflot agent sitting at the counter next to us, ready to check in any passengers to Kaliningrad. She wasn’t busy, yet she didn’t help us or call to anyone to us. Not her job, I guess.