18 April 2008 00:07
Ahhh, airline travel—that mode of travel I love most [4].I've been having some interesting times lately upon the friendly skies. The actual flying hasn't been bad at all, but I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time in an airplane—yet on the ground. A recent flight from Richmond to Kingston left Richmond an hour late (the aircraft was originially delayed from Chicago). Upon landing in Miami we spent about one hour and fifteen minutes on the ground in the airplane. This was a combination of lazy ground crews, incompetence, a ground stop resulting from a thunderstorm, and mostly more incompetence and laziness. The flight crew was pretty up in arms about it (whether genuinely or out of self-preservation to keep the passengers off their case I'm not sure), the captain relayed that he was getting the "not my responsibility" line from anybody he could reach in ops. The ground stop (where all ground personnel are prohibited on the airport ramp to prevent injuries due wind/rain/lightening) would have been issued by the airport itself (not the airline) and lasted only about 25 of 75 minutes we spent on the airplane. I didn't really suffer, I had a good book along. My company suffered in that they were paying me to sit there, and of course my connection was long gone so they lost a day's labor from me too since I wound up spending the night in Miami.
(This is a tangent, but one universality of Miami International is that your connecting flight is at a minimum three terminals away. This entails a 10-15 minute walk down wide hallways filled with 90º corners and no windows (according to posters on the walls they're building a new and better airport to serve us outside the hallway). I found it disappointingly ironic that the one time I arrive at Miami to find that my connecting flight is three gates down instead of three terminals...my connection has already left.)
Now I'm on the return flight, headed up to Baltimore. With a small amount of trepidation I picked an Air Jamaica flight (the flight down was American). Normal procedure out of Kingston to the Washington area is a hop to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, deplane and pickup your checked luggage for immigration and customs, recheck your bags, go through security again (after having gone through in Kingston), then wait for your flight to DCA or Dulles or BWI. In other words, if Expedia or whoever books your tickets gives you a flight pairing with an hour or 1:20 in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale—don't take it. Two hours is as short as I'll go for this particular layover. I picked the AirJ flight because it was a hop to Montego Bay before departing direct for BWI...viola, no customs between flights, that will happen after I land in Baltimore. Total time (flight plus layover) for the AirJ flight was listed as 4:50 whereas American flights through Miami were 6:30+. Seemed like a no-brainer (even if I had to fly AirJ to do it).
Air Jamaica is proud to be the national carrier of Jamaica. It's changed ownership (back and forth between privately owned and government owned) a couple times in recent years, suffers from a chronic shortage of funds (i.e., it tends to lose money like a sieve), carries a distinctive blue and gold paint scheme, and tends to be rather pricey compared to the likes of Spirit and USAirways, as well as American Airlines. Pricey has its benefits I guess. I figured out why it only cost as much as it did for the flight to Baltimore (about $320 oneway) after we'd loaded passengers in Montego Bay—the plane is virtually empty (okay, about half capacity). One of the benefits is a hot meal, although I cringe at using the term "benefit" and airline food in the same sentence, this actually wasn't all that bad. The coffee was bad though.
Something that really perplexes me were the passengers who rode along for the flight from Kingston to MoBay. Flying to Montego Bay is a really attractive notion, it takes about 20 minutes by air. But let me break it down for you: Let's say you're an upper middle-class Jamaican living in Mona or Beverly Hills and you want to go to Montego Bay. First you drive or are driven to the airport, this will take about 30 minutes. Stand in line for 30 minutes to check in, another 15 minutes to get through security, 10 minutes to go through immigration (tangent: I'd call it emigration, but all the signs say Immigration). Now depending how far ahead of time you showed up at the airport, you get to spend 20 to 40 minutes (or more) in the departure lounge. After the boarding call for your flight comes across the PA you have 20 minutes of walking and waiting before you're finally in your seat. Twenty more minutes to push-back, 15 to takeoff, NOW you finally get in those quick 20 to Mobay, 10 on the ground taxiing into the gate, and ten or fifteen of walking to immigration (yes you have to go through it again...even though this was a domestic flight). I've never been through Immigration at Montego Bay in recent memory, but I'll say give it 15 minutes and you're curbside (that's probably pretty optimistic). What's our grand total? Let's add on at least another 20 minutes for a taxi ride into town since the airport is north of the business sector and we've got 4:15 to 4:30 door to door. Unless of course you have delays (we sat in the plane for 45 minutes before leaving the gate in Kingston waiting for passengers from another cancelled flight to board), then it's more. Meanwhile, if you time it right you can drive to the same place in 3.5 hours, even if you time it miserably (traffic-wise) it'll still take you only about 4.5 hours. And I don't have exact numbers, but I'm guessing that the cost of gas (probably $50 to $60 for the trip) would almost never exceed the cost of an airline ticket.
That's for an Air Jamaica flight. There is (was?) and intra-island commuter running a 1900D, a Caravan, and some 206s out of Tinsen Pen, the non-international airport in Kingston. That makes a lot more sense to me, especially if they can deplane straight to the GA terminal in MoBay to skip customs/immigration. Tinsen Pen is located in Kingston proper, whereas Norman Manley International is out on the Palisados peninsula and requires driving all the way out to Harbour View before turning back to drive out the peninsula to the airport. In the case of our fictional flier from Mona or Beverly Hills the distance would be about the same, but anybody else (Stony Hill, Constant Springs, New Kingston, or anywhere west like Portmore or Spanish Town) would find Tinsen Pen closer (those driving in from Spanish Town would actually drive right by Tinsen on their way to Norman Manley). Flying with that commuter would probably make for something closer to a two hour trip (shooting in the dark). That's provided they're still operating. AirLink is the name that comes to mind, I'm not sure I remember the right name. Their 1900D was recalled by Beechcraft a year or so ago, I'm not sure they’ve replaced it.
My personal preference would call for driving any day over flying by airline. Last fall I actually opted out of a three hour flight from Tampa to DC and spent 16 hours on the road driving home with my aunt. One hundred percent worth it. I went to a conference in late January in Mississippi, that one was a toss up. By the time we drove northeast to DC, flew south to Charlotte, flew west to Jackson, then drove an hour and a half northeast to our destination we'd been traveling for 12 hours. Google told me it take us 12.5 hours to drive from our origin west to our destination. I'd have been up for it, my two travel companions preferred to fly. The drive from Kingston to MoBay is fascinating, and since they constructed Highway 2000 (a misnomer, it's still under construction) the trip is much less painful than it used to be. Roads are decent the whole way now, you can take a bypass around Spanish Town, Bogwalk Gorge is gorgeous, Ewarton Valley has good roads. The climb over the shoulder of Mt. Diablo through Mount Rosser can live up to the mountain's name, especially if you get stuck behind dump trucks with their accompanying diesel fumes, there's no chance to pass until you're traveling down the other side into Moneague. Reaching St. Ann's Bay on the north coast, you'll find yourself on the newly constructed Highway 2000. When I was last on it over a year ago, it was complete from Ocho Rios all the way to Salt Marsh or so with the exception of Rio Bueno. As we climbed out of Sangster International in Montego Bay this afternoon I noticed they'd completed the section curving around the east end of the airfield...during the middle of the day getting from Rose Hall to downtown Montego Bay took almost as long as getting all the way from Runaway Bay to Rose Hall. With the new road in through that section (two lanes each direction!) traffic should be dramatically eased.
It's a widely varying drove that takes you from south coast to north coast, through verdant lush interior to drier coast line (although the north coast is no-where as dry as the south coast), over hills and through valleys, through county-side and thriving metropolis. Or you can go through the zoo that is Norman Manley International Airport. I wish I had video to show you, for an airport that is in the final stages of a huge renovation project to completely revamp it's terminals in modern style it retains some decidedly third-world characteristics. The impression is one of an airport designed and owned by first-world foreigners, but peopled and used by third-world locals. Let's just say it's no surprise that you're required to go through security again upon reaching Miami. I'm a little curious what the TSA thinks about flights that come direct from parts foreign to major inland cities, for instance this particular flight passes directly over the DC area. It wouldn't take a great leap of logic for a terror-minded individual to deduce that security in Jamaica would be easier to circumvent than security in Miami
In a change of subject, I'm afraid I have a confession to make. I'm actually enjoying this flight. There are reasons though, which result from this flight being different than most flights I've been on recently. One, it's empty. This is critical. I have the whole row of three seats to myself...room to spread out, move my carry on off to the side, stretch my feet out, store books and notes on the seat beside me, jam my elbows completely across the armrest into what would be about four inches of the next persons personal space if they were here, store my drink cup and random food items on the tray beside me...leaving room for my laptop or whatever I'm working on on my tray. Flying on a packed flight (as was the hop from Kingston to Mobay) is an entirely different story—and an unenjoyable story at that. Two, it's a night flight...I find these more relaxing, I think that's a combination of circadian rhythms and soothing/somber lighting in the cabin. Three, they actually fed us. Not a biggie that I care too much about—I always bring my own food—but the small perks are still perks, no matter how small. Four, and this is counter-intuitive, but it's a longer flight. Clocking in at around 3:10, it actually is enough time to make it worthwhile digging out the laptop and setting up camp. Usually the flights are shorter (the Kingston-Miami hop is about 1:40, Miami-DC not much more than that). Between short flights and no elbow room with a passenger right next to me the laptop stays in the bag and I stick with a book.
So it's been a good flight. We're about 40 minutes out from landing, probably over the Carolina's somewhere, I'm slouched down enjoying some writing for the first time in a long while, the only person I can see is dozing, good tunes are piping through my noise-cancelling headphones (I can feel engine/air vibrations but can't really hear them over the music which isn't all that loud), and I'm looking forward to the drive home with no traffic (the benefit of landing in Baltimore at 2230—I love city driving late at night).
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