I'm sorry did the glow of my "good travel karma" hurt your eyes? So you all know that I travel... A LOT. I begrudgingly agreed to travel to The LBC (where there is indeed so much drama) last Friday.
After so many years of traveling in and out of Sacramento on Southwest, I am a travel snob. Especially prior to the 911 security matrix.... I once traveled all the way to South Carolina (or North Carolina, I can't remember) on my charm and good looks. No state issued identification necessary. The only caveat was if there was some kind of terrorist attack I would be stranded.
The point is that Southwest was (and I assume still is) easy... lots of flights in and out etc.
Traveling out of FAT (a.k.a. the Fresno Yosemite International Airport) on the other hand is a pain in the caboose. I make so many turn-around one-day trips that between the inconvenient flight times and the long security lines it is better to gas up old Eddie the Expedition and drive. That is until Express Jet came into my life. CHEAP, EASY, FLIGHTS TO SO CAL!!! Including the worst drive of all: San Diego!!! What more can a girl ask for?
Express Jet is the ONLY reason I agreed to go to Long Beach for a Friday meeting. $169 bucks and I am in, out and on with my life. The catch: the plane was scheduled to arrive at 9:47 and my meeting started at 10:00 am. The plane left at 4:00 pm and my meeting was over at... 4:00 pm.
Now, I have traveled enough to have had my share of "bad travel karma". Some of you might remember the: "I'm stranded in Dallas and I'm pregnant" incident. And certainly the more recent: we changed your connecting flight and didn't tell you debacle. I was overdue for the universe to pay it back. SO...
Express Jet delivered me to Long Beach early! I walked into the meeting (after a nasty little incident with a cabbie who was distracting me from my mission.) 7 minutes early. (By the way, Long Beach airport is portable buildings. Literally, portables. What is up with that?) I delayed my departure from the meeting as long as possible and arrived at the airport at 3:37 pm for my
4:00 pm flight. I figured (and was advised) that LAX it is not and 30 minutes would be plenty of time to make the flight. Mind you all airports advise arriving no later than 90 minutes prior to your flight, blah blah blah. I was too late to check in electronically and I feared the worst. But miraculously the flight was delayed 30 minutes. Perfect. It seriously does not get any better than that folks. Just enough time to check in, buy two more magazines, call Kevin and get on the flight.
That was the last time I will be able to fly Express Jet. They are pulling out of Fresno because of high jet fuel costs (WAH!). Here is an illustration of what that means in my life. I need to be in San Diego in November. With Express Jet the direct flight would have taken about an hour. Now if I want to fly to San Diego I will have to fly through LAX (no more direct flights) so I might as well walk.
Goodbye Express Jet. I may never see the inside of the Fresno Airport again.
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