Flying with Bwee - PRESSHA!!!

A post inspired by Manicou....

Now in my 6th year of school here in the U.S. (wow can't believe its been that long already), this is the first time I have a full-fare, confirmed seat, no standby ticket to Trinidad for Christmas. Alas it's on American Airlines. I shouldn't complain since I've travelled with Bwee the last 5 years using rebate tickets, but with some of the things I've seen people go through with Bwee....

Let's start at the start: the last time I flew American was 2001 on my way to Vermont to start college. Why American? it was cheaper in that it allowed a stopover in NY to visit with my family before going on up to school. One-way ticket paid for out of my own savings. So what happened when it was time for a visit to Trinidad? Enter my cousin, then a purser with Bwee. MANY of us know how it is to have family who work with an airline: rebate tickets! BUT you will always be a standby passenger. PRESSHA!!!!

It was jump seat fuh so! Even when my cousin was still flying and I would come back to NY when she was working the flight so she would get me on, it was still jump seat in meh ass! Jump seat in the galley. I remember once it was so busy in there, they put me to sit on some container in a corner while they moved the trolleys in and out. PRESSHA!! A couple times I got a seat in the cabin though, guess where? the exit row ones that don't recline. I doh know how those flight attendants get used to sitting straight up so whole time, well I suppose because they're NOT sitting whole time. But to be sitting facing the back of the plane...

Once I got to go in the jump seat in the cockpit. I'm sitting there looking at the instruments while the pilots tell me how against the rules it was that I am there LOL. "if anyone from the FAA comes in here, you are my niece." LOL How's that for a Bwee pilot? HAHAHAHAA SO funny looking back on it. Turned out that was one of the times I got a seat in the cabin, they realised there was a space when boarding was complete. Then there was the time my cousin got me in first class POS to JFK. I was at a window seat, nobody next to me and she bring a doubles she got by the vendor in the airport. A man on the other side of the aisle notices I eating doubles. Next time she came back, he asks how come everybody in first class not getting doubles? LOL Ah yes....good times....

Of course I have to talk about being stranded at the airport, JFK to be specific. Cuz let's admit it, you can't really be stranded at Piarco, Trinidad too small for that. But when you have to be crossing the Whitestone and paying tolls, and it taking long going through traffic...PRESSHA!!! I have thus spent a few nights well at JFK, talk about wanting to go home! Last year I think I spent TWO nights...they kept adding flights to try to get rid of all the overbookings (a great Bwee trait by the way) so we kept staying to try to get on. We? Yes yes, if you've ever flown standby, you know that you make friends with the other stand-by people. So it turns out several of us stayed overnight. I got there for the customary morning flights, didn't get on. Stayed for an additional afternoon flight, no luck. Still there were people who were overbooked left over. Then look! ANOTHER extra flight, hope on the horizon. Turns out it was a charter flight simply using a Bwee plane. What happened next was quite the spectacle for us stand-byers: Bwee put their overbooked on the charter, and BUMPED OFF people who pay dey good money for a charter flight home. Well I never see people cuss so! I surprised they didn't call security. In the meantime, we enjoying the entertainment; I mean we're flying for next to nothing so we get bumped, its expected, but these people....PRESSHA!!!

I hope the new airline has more strict standards about baggage, or maybe I should say ENFORCES the standards. It was always amusing to watch people open up their suitcases and repack on the floor by the check in counter. You ever see that happening at any other airline? I swear, the things people would pack to take to Trinidad, as if you can't get those things at home, soap? really now... And where does the stuff go that these people unpack to get their check-in pieces the right weight? In plastic bags they conveniently brought with them!! Now as far as I could tell, said plastic bags then go as carry on! so all the stuff is getting on the flight anyways! So much for the weight/no. of pieces restriction. Only Bwee....

Fortunately my cousin got outta there way before the true end came, so last year's ticket was the last "free ride" for me. And what a ride (or rides) its been! I have to say thanks to her, with all the nonsense, I've still been able to go home every year, sometimes twice a year. And with all the nonsense, in my Trinidadian nature, I will miss Bwee.


Till nex time...