Our initial travel day had a few hiccups. For several weeks, I had been worried about a relatively short connection in Seattle, where we would board the important flight of the day--our business class, upper deck seats on a British Airways 747 to London. I really did not want to miss that connection. We had talked with Alaska about changing to an earlier flight to Seattle. But because we were flying on miles, they had no seats for us. They'd be glad to sell us seats at a pretty regal price. And then because our international flight would be considered as starting in Seattle not Portland, they would have to reticket us for that flight. All told, the tab would be just shy of $700.
So we decided to live with the anxiety and keep our wallets closed.
And then the morning of our flight, we awoke to a message from British Airways that our flight out of Seattle would be delayed 2 hours. Hooray, you say. Prayers answered, you say. Me too at first. But then I realized it meant we had only 1 hour to make the connection in Heathrow for our flight on to Copenhagen. Yikes, that just might be a problem.
Off we went, knowing at least there must be plenty of options that would get us to Copenhagen. The important thing was the now-easy connection in Seattle. The nice person checking us in at the British lounge in Seattle assured us that we would not have to clear customs in London, which should make our connection workable. Everyone along the way was reassuring because our connecting flight in London was in the same terminal.
We had a comfortable and uneventful flight to London and hit the deck running once we reached Heathrow. We were cleared for what is called "Fast Track," which moves you into a much shorter line for passport control. The next step was to find out our gate number. The board simply said "Proceed to the 'A' gates." This required going down two levels and catching a train. Once at the "A" gates, we had to go back up, up, up. This is where we got to go through one of the most meticulous security checks we've encountered. We remembered from a previous connection at Heathrow that we would have to take out our liquids and tablets and cameras. But practically each thing had to be in its own bin. My jacket and shoes were allowed to be together, but the tablets had to be in a different bin, for example. It took us 5 bins. And Jerry had the pleasure of a full body scan and a pat down. Then we had to reassemble ourselves.
Only then could we find a gate number. And we drew the lovely Gate A23. A23 is the last gate in the A area of this very large terminal, and we were already past the time we were supposed to be at the gate. We set off at a hurried (should I say harried) pace. We heard them announce last call as we were several gates away. We arrived panting at the gate and managed to be the last people onto the plane. Amazingly, our bags made it onto the plane too. In fact, the only thing to recommend about this tight connection was that our bags were the third and fourth off the baggage carousel.
We then, in our tired and rather bedraggled state, chose to practice a false economy and used the metro--getting local currency, figuring out the transit options, and finding a place to buy tickets--to our hotel area in Copenhagen rather than take a nice, direct taxi. After dragging our bags about a mile over cobblestones on a sunny, warm day, it occurred to us that perhaps this hadn't been the time to take a principled stand.
There really was no way to have avoided any of this--at least the airline part--so there are no particular lessons to be learned. Except perhaps to get very, very nervous when airline people keep saying, "It's a legal connection."
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