A day of two halves. The Professor travelled incognito from SFO to JFK with the masses on a rammed overnight flight. Arriving sleep deprived he found that due to Virgin Atlantic only having one flight out of JFK that day the lounge, and baggage checkin, would not be open till 2pm.
The Professor cut a somewhat bedraggled figure sitting on his suitcase from 8am till 2pm. It took the Virgin Checking staff a full hour to set up checkin (hands up who knows that often airlines share checkin real estate and completely set up and dismantle their operation). The checkin staff treated the early checkiners with general disdain. When finally they showed pity 5 minutes early: “you can start queuing now sir”, followed by “oh sir you should have told us you were flying upperclass …”. Their mistake was immediately recognised and fixed. The hover pad arrived for the Professor and he was ushered off to the lounge for a shower and change of clothes.
We leave the Professor snoozing after eating his cheese and biscuits, on his 5th glass of champagne, and two clubhouse burgers the heavier.
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