A review of the Flightfox website and application

Flightfox is a website which supports crowd-sourced research of airfares and flight connections.  The idea is that, let’s say, you are flying from New York to Phoenix, and the airline quotes you a round trip airfare of $1000.  You think that’s a bit much, but you don’t really have time to research it, so you go on Flightfox and ask for help.  For a fee, which the website says starts at $24, some travel experts will research ways to save you money.  You choose the expert you like best, and work with that person to book your trip.

It sounds like it is a good idea.  I was not happy with the result.

We were planning a trip to take a tour (Rick Steves Adriatic tour) that originates in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and ends two weeks later in Dubrovnik, Croatia.  I found that getting to Ljubljana was not terribly hard.  It takes about 14 hours and you have to make multiple connections, but it looks doable.  But the return, from Dubrovnik to Dallas/Ft. Worth, was really, really difficult.  The only way to get back the same day was to take a departure out of Dubrovnik at 6 AM (although it might be 7 by the time we were going).

The fares ranged from pretty expensive to obscenely expensive.  I contacted American Airlines, hoping to cut the expense by using some miles for part of the trip, and ended up with a quote of over $5000 per person for the round trip.  Using Kayak.com, I found fares in the $1200 to $1300 range, but the return trip from Dubrovnik was in nearly all cases going to require an overnight stay in London or another European city (or, worse, at an airport).  The idea was to come home on Saturday, and go to work on Monday.  The idea was not to come home on Sunday and go to work on Monday.  Nor was the idea to extend two weeks of vacation to two weeks and change.

So, I had just heard about Flightfox on the This Week inTravel podcast, and decided to try it.  (Caution, this website is never current with what they have in iTunes.)  They asked for a hell of a lot more than $24, though.  I went ahead, and described our trip for the experts.  I tried to emphasize that my problem was transit time rather than cost.

The ‘contest’ for my fee ran twenty-four hours.  I received only eight bids from only three contestants. Nobody did any better than I had for myself using Kayak.com or other travel engines.  They all focused on beating the price when I was concerned with the duration of the return trip combined with the extremely early departure required to get home in one day.  We ended up cancelling the Rick Steves tour.  A fourteen day tour is just not feasible for people who are working for a living.  We need to keep it to ten or twelve.

My conclusion is that Flightfox might be okay for someone who is not an experienced traveler, but for someone like me (nearly two million miles on American) it is a waste of time and money.  I could be one of their experts, I suppose.  But I still couldn't get you home from Dubrovnik.

Fear and loathing 4

Most of the time I was working in Vermont, I was put up at the company’s guest house, a long ranch style house on the company’s campus.  It was within walking distance, although I didn't walk it, on account of the often life-threatening weather. The guest house was fairly Spartan, with rooms having a nice queen size bed, and a window out the back where you could see the woods, a hell of a lot of snow, and later, some nice green grass.  Also you could see the lady who came from somewhere in North Carolina every week who would be out there smoking.

Mid-April

The first time I was in the guest house was when I interviewed at the company. I had come in the night before and was left there by the company driver.  The room was on the main floor, and was kind of noisy, in that there was a heating/air conditioning unit which kept coming on.  The reason it kept coming on was that it was bitter cold out.  The room itself was quite warm, and the windows could not be opened – in fact there was a storm window in addition to the regular window.  The rooms all had a tiny circular table, and a couple of not very comfortable chairs.  There was a clock radio, a chest of drawers, a phone, a well equipped bathroom with travel-sized toiletries, including the smallest tube of toothpaste imaginable. 

Eventually I learned the trick of how to make the heat not come on.  But not for the first week or so, and you can’t use earplugs when you have to get up in the morning.  And I learned that the heat in the bathroom was enough to warm up the bedroom.

The guest house had a fancy breakfast, with pancakes or French toast, cereal, fruit, Vermont maple syrup, and so forth.   I would usually opt for an English muffin and some scrambled eggs, but eventually I taught one of the ladies how to poach eggs, so I could have those.  The breakfast was consistent, but the interesting part was who was there.  The company is such a difficult place to get to, that they routinely put up visitors overnight, and I ran into some very senior people from different companies.  Some of them were virulent in their comments about Vermont.

Lounge on the first floor. Never saw anyone use it.

When I returned for my first full week of work, I was put in a downstairs room.  There were half a dozen guest rooms off the hallway, and since these rooms were almost underground they temperature was better regulated.  The lower floor had a small kitchen, with a fridge and a microwave. There were cold drinks and ice available, and coffee making facilities.  There was a lounge with a TV – an old low definition television. I never used it.  Some old Naugahyde furniture completed the look.

The cookies in that jar were fabulous

Clubby, don't you think?

The problem I had in the guest house was sleeping.  At first, I had problems with the unusual noises, such as from the room heater.  Then I had problems because the smoke alarm in the hall was running low on its battery, and kept chirping.  I have experience with this!  I got out there, got that thing down, took out the battery, and left it lying on the floor.

The next night it was chirping again.  They had just put it back.  So this time, to make it a little easier for them, I put the battery in the trash.  And then complained at breakfast.  I had smoke alarm problems a couple of times.

Subsequently, I had problems with people who would set the alarm in their guest room for some ungodly hour, and then leave it set after they departed.  Guess who would have to get up and shut it off?

Another difficulty was, as it got to be spring, there were some wild animals around that made a lot of noise.  I couldn’t tell you what they were.  And the walls in the rooms were absolutely paper thin.  If they had permitted TV’s in there, it would have been a disaster.  I could hear the person in the next room’s phone conversations, and I could sometimes even hear them typing on their computer.

Guest rooms

Another amusement was that they had these tall light poles in the parking lot and all around the property, but not one of those lights worked.  I had a conversation with the manager of the guest house about it, and she just thought I hated Vermont.  I explained that I routinely got in at 10:30 or 11:00 PM on Sunday night and was tired of using my phone as a flashlight.  They eventually fixed all the lights. 

The saving grace about the guest house was that it had good, fast, free wi-fi.  I really appreciated that.

Fear and Loathing on the Way to Montpelier - 3

I started making regular trips to Vermont.  I really wanted to settle into a routine where I would leave mid-afternoon on Sunday and return Thursday, in time to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and work from home on Friday.

This never occurred.

My first trip up I got US Airways flight to Philadelphia, leaving around 2:45 or so.  This flight was on a regional jet, an Embraer 190.  It seems kind of strange to fly halfway across the continent on a “regional jet”, but that’s what we did.  The ER-190 is pretty comfortable, with 4 across seating in coach. It has a small first class section with one seat on one side and two on the other. 

I guess using the smaller airplanes enables the carrier to offer more frequent service.  Business travelers in particular are looking for their preferred departure times, and I guess this helps.  The ER-190 was a mainline US Airways flight, not one of the partner carriers.  The planes seemed a bit tired to me, and the service was not very snappy.  The planes have adequate under-seat storage, but overhead storage is at a premium.  I had no status on US Airways, but quickly learned that by signing up for their credit card option I could guarantee no worse than zone 2 boarding, which would enable me to get my roller bag on board.  I did not want to risk my bag failing to connect.

The roller bag worked out well.  I had a 21” bag from the Rick Steves Travel Store, and it worked well.  It is pretty light when empty.  I’ve had it for years, but the back-and-forth to Vermont stuff aged it quickly.  I would roll my shirts, and squeeze in a second pair of shoes, anticipating the extremely bad Vermont weather.  On the initial trips I took a heavy coat.  Later, I took a raincoat, almost a poncho, which I had picked up years before at L.L. Bean.  It could be squished down to a very small space in my bag.

My flight would usually arrive in Philadelphia at 5:30 or 6, sometimes later, and the outbound flight to Burlington left after 9, so there was no worry about missing the connection.  After a few trips, I found the best place to eat in PHL was at Vino Volo, which offers wine and smaller sized plates with really good food.  I have seen them around other places but not at DFW. 

The flight to Burlington was pretty full, but I was happy to see that it was an ER-175 operated by Republic Airlines, and not the dreadful CRJ out of terminal F.  The ER-175 is smaller than the 190, and at the time there were no first class seats, although they probably have them now. Republic has new planes, flown by pilots who are so young they look like they should be in high school, and some exceptionally attractive young flight attendants.  I won’t be critical, but on my airline of choice, pilots and FA’s tend to be, um, experienced.  The weather in Burlington was somewhat foggy, and we flew threw clouds and bounced around quite a bit.  We got in well after 10, and the airport was pretty deserted.  I have Hertz #1 Club Gold status, but in Burlington it hardly matters. You go to the desk like everyone else, but at least the information is already in the computer.

I didn’t understand the system and it took me a while to find my rental car.  Once I found it, and headed out of the airport, I was relying on memory of one trip where I was sitting in the back seat and it was daylight.  Now it was pitch black, and I had to rely on the extremely crappy poorly lighted Vermont signage to find I-89 to get to Montpelier.  And it was very, very cold.  Through blind dumb luck I managed to find the interstate. 

I-89 is unlike most interstates. It has four lanes, two in each direction, and for the most part the two sides are widely separated.  Most interstates are not that curvy and not that much up and down, but this one was built in the valley cut by the Winooski River, and it is a fast moving and violent river which didn’t flow very straight.  So the highway has a lot of fairly sharp curves for a road with a 65 mile per hour speed limit.  So I drove on this road, virtually the only vehicle on it. I turned on the radio and listened to a Quebec station (everything in French).  My concern was that this was the season when deer and, more importantly, moose were active.  And then later I learned that bears are active as well. With no lights, no one ahead of me, and the road so curved, had a large animal been on the highway I would have hit it.  Well, that happened, but not on this first trip.

I finally got to Montpelier, and then, of all things, I couldn’t find the insurance company.  This is incredibly stupid, but true.  When I was there before, the driver took the back way in because he didn’t like sitting at the light at National Life Drive, so I had not gone in that way.  There was a tiny sign indicating (I thought) the turn was ¾ of a mile away, when it was really saying turn right and it’s ¾ of a mile up the hill.  I didn’t even see the turnoff.  So here I am, driving around this little town, the state capitol, totally lost.  I pulled over and looked at the map on my phone.  Basically, I drove to the guest house navigating with my phone.  I was driving maybe 10 miles an hour, but there isn’t a hell of a lot going on Sunday night in Montpelier, so all I had to worry about was staying on the road.

I finally found the guest house, but it was pitch black out.  I had to use my phone as a flashlight to find the entrance, and again to see the keypad where I had to key in the code for access. Fun stuff.

The guest house itself is subject of the next entry.  

Fear and Loathing on the Way to Montpelier - 2

After my first, failed attempt, I was invited again to interview at the company in Vermont.  This time I had an easier time of it. The US Airways flight to Philadelphia was jammed, but on time, and I had time to connect to my commuter flight to Burlington.

What I didn’t understand was Terminal F.

The main terminals at PHL are A through D.  F is the commuter terminal, and you get there via a shuttle bus.  I had a boarding pass that identified my gate, so when I got to the terminal I went straight there, all the way to the end of the terminal.  They were making continual announcements, and it was very crowded and confusing.  I realized as I got closer to departure time that my flight must have changed gates, but there were no displays anywhere I could check.  I asked a US Airways person behind the counter where the Burlington flight was, and it was at the opposite end of the terminal.

I had to hustle but I made it.  At the boarding gate there were three or four gates close together, with flights being called simultaneously, and basically enough seats for about a fifth of the people waiting. 

Frequent flyers often use another word that begins with F to describe your experience in terminal F at PHL.  I just sort of think of the First Circle – more Solzhenitsyn’s than Dante’s.

The airplane was quite small, a CRJ.  It was Air Wisconsin operating as US Airways Express.  My small carry-on fit under the seat.  The overhead would not accommodate anything bigger than, say, the New York Times, and I mean daily, not Sunday. The plane flew up the Jersey shore and then crossed Long Island somewhere around the Queens/Nassau border.  The flight up to Burlington was quick. It was growing dark as we got near Burlington, and there was a hell of a lot of snow on the ground.

Once the plane landed in Burlington, I walked to the baggage claim area where I was met by a driver from the insurance company. He was also picking up another individual who was on the same plane that I was on. When we got to the car the other individual jumped into the front of the car, and I had sit in the back, which I thought was kind of a little bit rude in that I've never been there before and needed to learn how to find my way. The drive from Burlington over to Montpelier takes around 30 minutes and I had never seen snow piled so high in my life.  The weather was actually pretty good, the temperature was not terribly cold, and we got over to the company in good order. The driver dropped off the other guy who was whose car had been left in the company parking lot, and took me over to the guesthouse where, it turns out, they don't have anything to eat for dinner, so he volunteered to take me into town so I could get some takeout at a restaurant.

The restaurant was called Sarducci’s, and it was very busy, and they did have some take out and I got some pasta with chicken which was served in a cardboard container. This is a thing in Vermont: they don't like Styrofoam and use cardboard were other places would use Styrofoam. I went back to the guesthouse with the driver and the band they had some  utensils in the kitchen and I was able to eat my dinner. The guesthouse is extremely spartan; the rooms have a queen size bed and no television.  I spent a very fitful night, mostly because the room heater kept coming on, even though it wasn’t particularly cold in the room, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.

The next day I interviewed all day at the insurance company. This is what it looked like right outside the guest house.  They told me half the snow had melted since the big storm that stopped me the first time I tried to get there.

Some of the people I interviewed with I knew from prior work experience, but had never met face to face.  It’s always fun, in that they never look like how you’d imagined. It happened to be March 17, and I had a free lunch in the company cafeteria. I ordered corned beef, it was beyond any doubt the worst corned beef I've ever had. Probably the worst corned beef anyone has ever had. Mind you the cafeteria was actually quite good, and all the time I went there I never had another bad meal. The people were friendly and accommodating and I ended up working out the deal to where I would do some consulting work for them.

The HR lady was particularly impressed that I had my L.L. Bean mug for coffee.  They charge extra for cardboard, but you get a price break if you provide your own mug.

After interviewing with six or seven people, another driver took me back to the airport. What I failed to do was to observe carefully how to get to the airport because it's really tricky. There are not really big on signs in Vermont, and at the airport there's just one tiny little sign under a tree that you really would never see unless you already knew it was there, and so you can drive around for hours trying to find the airport. You wouldn't think it would be hard to find an airport.

I caught a 5 o'clock or so flight from Burlington down to Washington Reagan and all that worked out fine. I was feeling pretty good because things had gone so well.  I found a seat at a restaurant and had something to eat.  I then connected to the US Airways flight (actually Republic Airways operating as USAir Express) and got back to DFW airport in reasonably good shape.

What I did not know is that this was the first, last, and only time that my travel would be routine.

Fear and Loathing on the way to Montpelier (1)

In early 2011, I had a phone call from someone I used to work with regarding a contract position as a business analyst for a company in Montpelier, Vermont.  She worked for their IT outsourcer, and I had worked for their Dallas based subsidiary. I had taken the job in Dallas after my much larger corporate client had severe financial problems, and I felt like I had to take it.  After a year, I could not handle working there any more, and left.  I hadn’t had any nibbles until this phone call.

I thought it would be sort of fun to go back to that company as a consultant, especially at the parent’s headquarters.  So I expressed interest.

Another person called me, from the business area of the company where I would be working. We hit it off well, and she indicated I would need to come up there for a face-to-face interview with several people.  Okay, fine.  She set it up for a day in early March.  They were okay with my obscenely high billing rate.

To get there from where I live (near Dallas) is challenging.  Montpelier, while the state capital, does not have a commercial airport.  The closest airport is in Burlington, a small city overlooking Lake Champlain. Burlington is about 30 miles from Montpelier. There is a surprising amount of air service to Burlington, considering how small a city it is, but the region has a lot of activity, lots of colleges and such, and I learned later that people come down from Quebec to take advantage of cheaper airfares (and pretend not to understand English when it comes to boarding zones).

But basically, to get to Burlington, I would have to connect in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York (LaGuardia), or Washington D.C. The airlines serving Burlington included Delta, United, Jet Blue, Continental (still around then), and US Airways. It seemed as though US Airways had more options available than the other carriers, and although everyone on the various travel podcasts I listen to universally despised US Airways, I decided it would have to do.  I don’t know that it would have made any difference in the long run, because the time I was going back and forth to Vermont included a very stormy spring both in the Northeast and here.

I looked into other ways to get to Montpelier where I wouldn’t have to connect.  There were three: Hartford (Bradley International), Boston, and Montreal. The closest was Montreal, but the service there didn’t provide reasonable choices.  Also, I didn’t know what the border situation was like; would you be stuck for hours in a line waiting for US Immigration and Customs to let you in. And it would confuse the crap out of the Canadian immigration authorities when I, obviously a businessman, said I had no business in Canada and was leaving immediately. 

Hartford was the longest distance, but only by a few miles over Boston. I did not consider Boston an option; I went to college there and have driven in Boston enough times to know that it could take three hours just to get out of Boston if conditions were unfavorable, and even if they weren’t you could still die trying to get out of there.  Hartford looked like a three-hour drive.  But for now I accepted the necessity to (gasp) connect, a frequent flyer’s recipe for disaster.

My first trip was for the all-day interview.  I had emailed an old family friend who lives in Vermont about all this, and he was all excited and offered to pick me up and have me stay at his house.  Later I found out he lived a good distance away and it would have been painful, but the company was putting me up in their guesthouse.  I was supposed to leave at 11 A.M., and if all went according to plan, arrive in Burlington around 5, and a driver would meet me there.  I would stay in the company guesthouse, interview most of the day, and catch an early evening flight to Washington Reagan and then to DFW.

The day I was leaving, I got an email from my friend who lives in Vermont. Basically he said there had been a huge storm and there was snow everywhere, with drifts up to seven feet. Another friend from the company posted a note on Facebook that the Burlington airport was shut down.  So I was dubious about this, but I had agreed to go, so I felt like I should at least make the attempt.

I left the house as planned and headed to DFW Airport.  On my way the phone rang in my car, giving me a chance to use the hands-free, which I barely knew how to use.  It was my contact in the business area, asking where I was.  I replied I was driving to the airport, but wondered if I should turn around.  She said, oh, no, they are really good at cleaning off the roads around here and there should be no problem.

So, I continued on to DFW, to the unfamiliar confines of Terminal E.  I got a sandwich and put it in my bag, and waited.  The plane was an unfamiliar type, an Embraer regional jet, ER-190.  I was not impressed by the condition of the plane – it looked fairly beat up.  The seats were two by two, so no middle seat. My seat was toward the rear – with no status on US Airways I was in a bad boarding zone. My bag was a carry-on that fit underneath the seat, so I was good to go.  It was my first experience with this airline in a while, and they seemed efficient, but a little bit low-rent. It was like a low-cost airline, but without the low costs.

A few hours later, we landed in Philly.  I turned on my iPhone, and it went berserk with text messages and emails from US Airways.  My outbound flight had been cancelled.  I phoned the lady in Vermont and told her.  She said the storm had been really bad and the roads had NOT been cleared as she expected.  When I checked with US Airways stranded passenger desk, the guy, who looked like he must have been an Allegheny veteran, told me everything to Burlington was cancelled for the next two days. I asked if he could get me home.  He checked, and wrote out a paper ticket, with the machine that you slide, that makes an impression on the ticket. Hadn’t seen one of those in 20 years.  Here’s to US Airways. (I had a heck of a time getting that flight added to my Dividend Miles account, because their computer didn't know I was there.)

I called my contact in Vermont and told her I was going back to Dallas.  She couldn’t really say anything – I couldn’t hang around Philly for two days.

I got back home at 10 or so, having not set foot in Vermont. I did get to have my first ride on a ScareBus, an A319 from Philadelphia to DFW. I also failed to choose the best place to eat in PHL, Vino Volo, but I didn’t repeat that mistake a second time.

“Sometimes God is on your side”

During the summer of 1970, I spent a lot of time playing golf. I had just graduated from Boston College, and was awaiting either a) going on active duty in the US Navy, or b) getting accepted to Officer Candidate School in the US Coast Guard and going there. My mother thought I should get a job at Friendly’s or something but I didn’t want to just start working somewhere only to leave immediately afterward.

So, I used to play a lot of golf. But there were no golf courses near where we lived, in Ridgefield, CT. (There is a nice municipal course there now.) My Dad and I looked all around for a course, and the easiest one for us to deal with was at James Baird State Park, in Pleasant Valley, NY, almost to Poughkeepsie. It was a Robert Trent Jones design, not too difficult, but reasonably well maintained and it was cheap.  I would drive my Dad to the train station in Katonah, NY, and then drive up the Taconic State Parkway to the golf course, usually arriving just as it opened at 7 AM.  This would be ideal; I started right away, and no one was ahead of me, so I never had to wait.  The only bad part was that the heavy overnight dew would make the greens play really slowly.  (I have seen some incredibly negative reviews of this course recently, which, I assume, are attributable to New York's budgetary problems. It was well maintained when I played it.)

So I would do this a few days a week, and while my game improved, it didn’t improve much. I had what amounted to half a set of clubs, and sometimes I just didn’t have the club that was called for. But I didn’t mind, it was still fun.

One morning I got there just as the course opened.  I teed off on the first hole, a short par 4 (345 yards) and hit a decent shot for once. Never warming up was a bad habit. I hit my second close to the flagstick, and managed to sink the putt for a birdie. I had never before even parred the hole. So now, for the second time in my life, I was under par for a round, if it was only for one hole.  The second hole was a modest par 5, 475 yards or so, and I strung together three good shots and made a second birdie.  The third hole was a very short par 3, only a 9-iron, and with the confidence I had from the first two holes I tried to hole it.  I didn’t succeed, but the ball was on the lip.  A tap in birdie and I was three under after three holes.  I had finally figured this damn game out.

The fourth hole was a longer, but still not long, par 5, which I had always played well before, probably because by now I would be warmed up.  I hit my tee shot well, and as I walked to my ball the first sprinkles came down.  By the time I got to the ball, it was a storm of biblical proportions.  I had no rain gear.  I was drenched to the skin in no time. It was freezing.  I stood under a tree for a while, and finally gave up.  I slogged back to the clubhouse, could not get a rain check, and got back to the car.

It was about an hour’s drive to home. I was not a happy golfer – getting rained out of the first (and only) time I was actually playing well.  I had never broken 90 at James Baird, but I was probably going to that day.

I got home and got out of the wet clothes, put on dry ones.  Then the cramps started.

I had abdominal cramps that were quite severe, followed by vomiting, followed by stuff coming out of every orifice simultaneously.  I had an intestinal bug, and I was incredibly, horribly sick.  After a while I started shivering uncontrollably, and all I could to was go back to bed, in between trips to the bathroom.  I continued this way most of the day.

My mother was working part time at a bank over the state line in New York.  She came home to find me in this state, and was obviously very concerned because being sick was something that never happened to me.  I told her the story, and then it occurred to me that if I hadn’t been rained out, I would have been out on the golf course, by myself, when this happened.  I don’t know how I would have worked it out, but it would have been a hell of a mess.  I might have ended up in an ER in Poughkeepsie.

My mother put her hand on my forehead, checking my temperature, which was up, and said, “Sometimes God is on your side”.

When I escaped the blizzard

I was doing some work for an insurance company in New York.  Their office was on 57^th Street.  This would have been in 1986 or so. On the news in the morning, on Friday, I heard the forecast that a major storm was coming up the East coast, and it was going to be all snow in New York, and it was going to be bad. Sometimes they were non-committal about the forecast and whether it would be rain or snow, but not this time.

I was going to New York often, and my normal routine was to take American Airlines flight 25, which left around 3:00 or so, a DC-10 flying non-stop to DFW. I would normally break for lunch, and then come back to work for a while and then catch a taxi to the airport at around 1:00.  This obviously was in the days before 9/11, the TSA, and the two hours early recommendation. 

Given the weather forecast, I elected to leave work early and grab something to eat at the airport.  As I waited to flag a taxi on Sixth Avenue, the first snowflakes were trickling down.  By the time I got to the airport, it was snowing so hard you couldn’t see.  I paid the driver, and went in to the ticket counter to check in.  (This really was a long time ago when you had to check in at the counter!)  I asked if they had an airplane for the 3 o’clock to Dallas, and the agent checked, and said they did. Well, generally they can take off in a lot worse stuff than they can land in, so I was fairly confident it would happen.

I had lunch, but noticed, as I walked to the gate, a certain air of desperation among the passengers. 

The gate area for flight 25 was absolutely jammed.  LaGuardia is an old airport, and the gates were not intended for jumbo jets.  Lots of people were standing around.  There were continual announcements as they brought standbys up to check in. I did not see any other airplanes on that finger other than mine – if you were not on flight 25, you were probably spending the night at the airport.

The flight boarded on time, and the plane taxied out to the runway.  The pilot announced that the conditions were above the company minimums, and he was asking for the snow plows to take one more sweep down the runway, and we would depart.  And we did.  At the time, American had a channel on the inflight audio where you could listen to the air-to-ground communications.  After taking off, the pilot called Washington center and asked for direct routing to DFW. The response was, “Captain, you’re the only thing up there. You can go wherever you want.”

I spent the weekend at home, with some cloudy but warm February weather.  I went jogging a couple of times in shorts and a t-shirt. Late Sunday I flew back to New York, where the airport had only just re-opened, and for the only time in my life I shared a taxi. Two ladies who were shoppers for Dillards department store, and I, shared a cab.  The FDR drive had only one lane open (of three).

When I went to work the next day, I knew from bitter experience that the people working there had spent the whole weekend digging out, so I didn’t tell them anything. One secretary, however, asked if I had gone home that weekend.  I told her I had.  She asked how the weather was in Dallas.  I replied that she didn’t want to know.