All interesting comments.
I flew yesterday, and it was a less than thrilling experience.
I was taking a flight with a connector, and I missed the connector because the first flight was very late.
I hate to wait several hours for the night flight, which also took off late. It seems that the only flight that took off on time yesterday was the one that I was supposed to catch as my connector.
I got home at 2:30 AM when I was scheduled to get home at about 10 PM. It even took them forever to unload the luggage from the plane, for some reason.
Other than that, it was not too bad.
For new flyers, I definitely recommend a window seat, especially for a day flight. Even after all this time, I still like window seats, though they are less convenient if you need to get up and take a leak, or want to grope the stewardess
.
I sometimes fly first class if I can get a reasonably priced upgrade, but this time I flew coach. Since most airline flights no longer have food, and food was the biggest differential between first class and coach, it's just not worth that much extra. There's a bigger seat, but the seats in coach are really big enough, unless you weigh 300 pounds. First class allows easier boarding and disembarking, as well as free drinks and headsets, but othre than that, it doesn't offer a lot, unless you're talking about a really long flight.
I check all my luggage now. One pet peeve I have is people who make boarding and disembarking take forever by taking excessive carry-on luggage. Since Sept. 11, I don't want to have to worry about whether they'll consider my shaving razor a weapon, or something like that, so I just check all the sh**t. The only downside is the risk that the airlines f**k up and I don't get the luggage at my destination city. It has been known to happen.
When you're flying, make sure your feet don't stink, since they seem to routinely make everybody take off their shoes to go through security. That's the most important piece of advice I can give you.
But don't use baby powder to take away the odor -- they may think the white powder is an explosive. What a crazy world we live in.
