The Airplane Experience

Traveling is not what it used to be but this trip to Italy was not too shabby. Perhaps because we experienced the new United business class configuration on their international 747’s. Each seat is its own little universe with seats that lay down into full beds long enough to fit six foot Ken. Each person has a private entertainment console with options for movies, audiobooks, games, audio, Berlitz language lessons in multiple languages, TV shows, children’s programs and stuff I forget. All the programming is “on demand” so you can do whatever you want whenever you want. The selection of movies is extensive as are the audio options—you can even program your own playlist with any combination of music and artists you chose.

All of this is nice to relish if you have miles with which to upgrade or can cash in for a full ticket. Paying for it would be an altogether different matter—unless one has money to burn.

We did have one real scare when it looked as if we were parted from all our electronics, including computer, GPS, IPOD speakers, jewelry and all of our data for our two months here. We were on the upper deck of the plane where there is a little cubby hole to store carry-ons. When Ken grabbed ours, it was the last little black case there. Then, as soon as we deplaned, I opened it to get our passes for the flight from Frankfurt to Florence. It was the wrong suitcase!

As would be expected, we panicked. Without going into all the commotion, the highlights are:

After what seemed like a lot of time (which we didn’t have as the connection time to our next flight was brief), UAL/Lufthansa staff found which connecting flight the owners of the bag we now had were headed to. Unbelievably, it was to Florence—the same flight as ours. Coincidentally, the people were from San Diego.

We rushed to the boarding area which had a long, long, long line of people waiting to go through security. We knew that the people with our bag had to have discovered the switch up due to our computer but had no idea if they had already gone through security, were someplace trying to find their bag, what?. We were clueless.

We spoke with a man who was supervising the security line. He let us cut to the front and go right through, but he didn’t have any knowledge of the situation.

We rushed to the gate just as the plane was boarding. Standing at the agents’ desk was a couple being issued passes and a security guard holding the tag from our case. This was the couple who sat in front of us on the plane from San Francisco and who had taken our bag. Ken identified who he was and the security guard took him to a room where our case was being held. The other people were very relieved to get theirs back and so all ended well, including making our connection on time. But for a short while, things did not look all that good.

We view this as a true answer to prayer. Casey, who is a bonafide worrier, was becoming a basket case so I stopped with him and we prayed for God’s help in finding the suitcase. A minute later it all came together. Casey took no time in proudly telling the woman that he had prayed and so that was why it all worked out. He is a true child of faith.

The plane ride from Frankfurt to Florence is a short one and so very quickly we were where we wanted to be—home with friends.