Belfast Travel Diary, Part 3

In case you missed the first two blog entries about my trip to Northern Ireland, here they are:

• Part 1
• Part 2

Newark

6:30 p.m.: I haven’t been to Newark nor its airport in a long time. That was back when my Dad’s sister and her family lived in Jersey City. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, the last time I was there, construction walls were plastered with posters for an upcoming movie titled Dirty Dancing and Michael Jackson’s new album, titled Bad.

My original flight plan included a six-hour layover at Newark, so I’d planned to make use of the Continental President’s Club lounge, with its comfy seats and valuable freebies: free non-alcoholic beverages, snacks and wifi. As a non-member, I’d have to pony up US$45, for the privilege, but my personal travel rule is that any serious layover time justifies either a trip to the city or hanging out in the elite business travel lounge.

The plan had changed. Since I volunteered to arrive at Newark at a later time in exchange for a flight voucher, I had two hours and change until my connecting flight to Belfast. In my books, that’s not enough layover time to justify the additional expense of the President’s Club. I decided to take a tour of the terminal instead.

Toronto’s Airport: A Brief Aside

I’m proud of Accordion City, but I feel a little shame when I walk through other cities’ airports. Despite having the dubious honour of being the most expensive airport at which to land in the world — an airline would have to pay CDN$13,000 to land a 747-400 — Terminals 2 and 3 can best be described as “ghetto”. Terminal 3 was once the jewel of Pearson airport, but what were once considered clean and spacious check-in areas and departure lounges are shabby and cramped (although there are signs of improvement with the current renovation). As for Terminal 2, it’s a cramped bunker with below-average food solds at above-average prices. I can get that in the UK, and they’ll throw in some local atmosphere for free, dudes.

(Yes, Terminal 1 is pretty decent, but despite flying an average of once every six weeks, I never end up going through there.)

Newark’s Terminal C has high ceilings, wide corridors, some decent-looking restaurants and enough shops to keep a traveller busy. If I needed to, I could buy a suit there. The only department where Toronto’s airport beats Newark is in availability of electrical outlets. I had the audiobook version of Imperial Grunts loaded on my iPod and I wanted to be sure it was fully juiced.

16D

I was hungry, but my itinerary said that dinner would be served on the flight. I opted to go light and just get a frozen yogurt from the food court. The stall beside the Yogen Fruz had a line of people with Irish lilts, all ordering something either fried or deep-fried. I figured that they were to be my fellow passengers on the flight to Belfast.

About an hour and a half later, the boarding call was made. Boarding was a bit slow, as the majority of the passengers seemed to be Irish tourists laden down with shopping and souvenirs from nearby Manhattan. I boarded when the call that included my row — 16 — was made.

If you’re flying “cattle class” on a Continental 757-200 and you have the opportunity to pick your seat, row 16 is a very good choice. It’s the rearmost of the over-the-wing exit row seats, which means that your seat can recline, but the seat in front of you can’t. This isn’t hard-to-find knowledge: I found it on this page at SeatGuru.com, which is a site you should be aware if if you fly often. I chose seat 16D, which is an aisle seat: plenty of room for the legs.

I worked my way down the aisle towards my seat. Row 12, 13, 14, 15, then finally row 16. Which was completely occupied. By a gaggle of Irish teenage girls travelling together, fidgeting with newly-bought iPods (they still had the Apple Store bags).

“Hi there,” I said to the girl in my seat, showing her my boarding pass, “my pass says that I’m in 16D.”

“So does mine,” she said, showing me her boarding pass. There it was in bold: 16D.

“I think I’ll check with the people up front,” I said. As worked my way forward, I looked at the rest of the plane. Full. It dawned on me that after years of dodging the bullet, it was finally my turn to be a victim of overbooking. Not only would I not get my primo seat; I might not get any seat.

I showed my boarding pass to the chief flight attendant, a friendly guy with a nametag that read “Dave”.

“Hmmm…” he said, looking at papers on a clipboard, which I presumed was a passenger manifest. “This could be tricky. We’ve got a full plane tonight. Would you be interested in taking the next flight, this time tomorrow, in exchange for a voucher?”

I held out the vouchers I’d earned for taking a later flight to Newark, explaining that not only have I done my good deed for the day, but also that the people at the Continental counter in Toronto tried to pull a bait-and-switch on me and that I had a wedding to catch.

“You make a good case,” said Dave. “Look, stay here in the galley. I’ll take your boarding pass to the ticketing desk and see what we can do for you, Mr…” — and then, after looking at my boarding pass — “..deVilla.”

He then turned to the stewardess who was standing beside us and said “Could you get Mr. deVilla a drink while he’s waiting?”, and then ran down the jetway.

I was expecting to be offered a coffee, but the stewardess turned to me and with a sympathetic voice asked, “Heineken?”

“Sure,” I replied.

What Happened

Dave returned, with a facial expression that seemed to say that there were no free seats. He also held up a finger in a way that said “Wait, I’ve got one more thing to try.”

He picked up the allcall headset and made a general announcement, offering a free night’s stay at an airport hotel in Newark and a $500 voucher to anyone who’d volunteer to get off the plane. A minute later, a soccer-shirted guy in his twenties grinning for ear to ear, nattering about getting drunk in Manhattan for an extra night deplaned, and a half-minute after that, I got his seat: 27D.

The rest of the flight went without incident. (Inflight movies: Take the Lead, starring Antonio Banderas as a French dance instructor, complete with lame-o explanation of why he had a Spanish accent, followed by Vegas Vacation. Watched the first, which actually wasn’t too bad, briefly thought about making good on that promise to The Ginger Ninja to take ballroom dancing lessons with her, slept through the second.)