San Francisco International

At security I was told only one piece of hand luggage in addition to my laptop bag. So I stored my camera in my carry on and headed for the lines again. As there were more passengers coming, they decided to guide us to the other lines. I was told to use the First Class Lane, but there was not much off a difference between all of this lines. But it was really not an issue; I went through security quite fast.

I headed for the RCC and was able to enter it without showing the permit. At the monitors I learned my flight was delayed by now 90 minutes. So I decided to look for a seat and work a bit on this trip report. Time passed and I decided to look again at the monitors and now found my flight cancelled. So I took my belonging and headed for the counters and get rebooked. The agent was not very nice, she looked at the ticket and rebooked my on the next flight at 13:00 (which was already half an hour delayed at this time), but in Y. I told her politely that I was booked in First, whereupon she only said “really?” and put me on the waitlist. I told her, if there was no seat in First available and was told “You are only LH Star Gold, there is nothing in First, but you are # 1 on the waitlist”. At this moment I was again somehow annoyed about the attitude of staff.

I decided not to discuss this any further, as this was only a 01:20 hours flight and usually it get you nothing.

To make a long story short, I sat in the lounge, had several cups of coffee, some cookies, read in my book and my flight got even more delayed. It not showed a departure time of 15:40. At 15:30 I headed for the gate to found my flight ten minutes more delayed. My wait list of course did not clear. The other thing it, there were two other Mr. Klein on the waitlist and the monitor were not updated at once, so every time a Mr. Klein was called we all headed to the counter, only to learn, that we were not the called person - there was a fourth one ! I had requested to get at least an Economy Plus seat, but failed as I was “only” Lufthansa and despite the fact I have had a First Class seat, all MP members got the Economy Plus seat. As finally boarding begun with First Class, Star Gold etc I gave up and boarded the plane to get at least space in the overhead compartment.

21 February 2008
SFO – LAX
[San Francisco – Los Angeles]
UA 886 (United); Boeing 737-300 (N202UA)
Gate 73a
13:00 – 14:34 [effective 16:05 – 17:35]
Economy Class
Seat 19 B

The flight was completely full and we became further delayed. We were pushed back at 16:05 and rolled for the runway to queue for take off. We were finally airborne at 16:20. The flight itself was a bit bumpy, but otherwise okay. I read in my book.
The flight attendants made a quick beverage service and it was time to descend into LAX.

We touched down at 17:18 but had to taxi around the terminal to finally reach the Terminal 7 UA used in LAX. We arrived there at 17.35 and after some minutes wait I was able to deboard and headed for the stop of the courtesy shuttle to the car rental agencies.

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