I HATE LAX. It’s gotta be one of the worse airports in a major city. I get to Tom Bradley international Terminal and no one has any information on my Air Berlin flight. Only that I’m at the correct terminal. I get on my Flight Aware app and the app doesn’t have any info on my flight either. I head over to the Korean Air Priority Pass lounge and assume I’m just too early. I get a bite to eat and drink. Pass some time and before I head out I ask the lady at the desk for info on my flight. My boarding pass says gate 155. The lady couldn’t pull up any info on my flight. She said I should be good with gate 155.
At 4:30pm my flight was scheduled to start boarding. I head to gate 155. When I get there I realize that’s not my flight and there is STILL no information on the screens about my Air Berlin flight. I then get paged on the intercom and they say “Will James Quintanilla please report to gate 140.” Gate 140 is on the opposite side of the terminal. Im freaking out. I start running and walking as fast as I can. Sweat is dripping down the back of my neck and I’m thinking they’re going to leave without me. A 10 min stressful run later. I get to the terminal, I get my passport checked and the flight is delayed. I was relieved.
The Flight
This long ass flight sucked. Well it only sucked about 50% if I want to be totally honest. The flight crew and all staff were very pleasant and handled the public pretty good.
To begin with the plane was about an hour and half late, which the staff cannot control. I wasn’t worried about that. I have a layover in Dusseldorf, then straight to TXL (Tegal airport Berlin).
We got a pillow a blanket, socks, earplugs and a sleeping mask. That was a nice perk.
We had inflight entertainment which was a good thing to have. The movie selection wasn’t super great. It was fine. Considering I love watching movies I think I’ve seen most movies. Good thing I downloaded 3 horror movies for me to watch on the plane.
I ended up watching Spy with Melissa McCarthey. I love that movie because I used to be a private investigator and I can relate to a lot of the scenes. Makes me laugh overtime. They really got a lot of things right.
Anyway… The seats on this flight have almost NO legroom. Even for me. One of the good and/or bad things about these coach seats are how much they recline. Its a lot! About a good 6 inches or so. However, considering you have no space between you and the person in front of you, if they recline, they are almost on top of you. If you are eating, or working on your laptop or even watching the TV screen, it will all be undoable as soon as they recline.
I stayed up and watched two movies before I got sleepy. They gave us a good Chicken and rice meal. As soon as I was done, I got sleepy and decided to sleep. I put my seat back only to be yelled at by the lady behind me for “invading her space.” I hate to sound spoiled but now that Ive tasted first class seating, I don’t think I can handle coach anymore. You’re super cramped in. people are on their worst behavior. I just cant take it.
I managed to sleep for about 4 hours. At that point, the staff came around and passed out breakfast trays of food. It was petite but delicious.
We landed shortly. I was so glad to be away from those people.
Let me break it down for you:
I paid $140 USD for this flight. I used miles to book this flight. So it was super super super cheap. I should not be complaining. But it was a 10 hour long flight. I got yelled at by the lady sitting behind me.
Other people were annoyed about the same issues too.
The flight was super late.
But we got fed and we had movies.
It was worth the $140. Totally worth it. But now I know why people pay $1400 USD instead of one hundred fourty for First class tickets.
Would I do it again? A 100 dollar ticket to Europe? Um… hell yeah… even with the pains and annoyances.
