Flight 001: The Beginning

Here's my first attempt at converting all my miles into something useful. I hit 2-3 cities on average each week and have gotten to see a lot of America in the last few months. I'm Asian and female, which makes me somewhat of an oddity among the seemingly endless flood of white male road warriors traveling alongside me every week. Speaking of which...I think I've figured out that iPhone's target market is aging males who are trying to reclaim some status of "coolness" that they questionably once had back in their glory days. I've lost count of the number of guys I've seen walking around with those little white earbuds tucked snugly inside their ears and tapping away on their sleek touchscreens.

Anyway, in the future, I'll write more detailed posts on where I go and what I see, but for now, here's a quick hit on 2008 so far:

LAX (Los Angeles) - One of my worst nightmares of an airport - leave ample time for transfers and even more patience for delays and off-airport car rental pickups/dropoffs.

BUR (Burbank) - I love having the car rental on site but no Hertz Club Gold screen is the worst. Isn't the point of Club Gold that you never have to wait in line? However, Burbank has the best damn bacon cheeseburger I've ever had in any airport so that alone bumps it up on my list.

SEA (Seattle) - Flying southwest here is great but having to take those trams to the remote terminals for other airlines (alaska,not sure which others) really sucks.

SAN (San Diego) - Ah, what's not to love about awesome weather and onsite Hertz car rentals? I've never had a problem with security lines here and the SFO-SAN route on Southwest makes me a very happy girl. 3/31/08 Update: San Diego airport is not as sweet as I thought - car rental is offsite. Minus 2 points.

OMA (Omaha) - Whoa! Umm...I see white people. All kidding aside, this airport was small and not memorable which means that it neither wowed nor sucked. And yes, Omaha is known for its ethnic diversity but everyone was exceedingly friendly, especially at the Hilton Omaha.

IAD (Washington-Dulles) - Dulles is perhaps the only airport that sucks more than LAX. It's poorly laid out and requires you to herd onto outdated shuttle buses to get to your terminal most of the time. And if you're lucky enough to not have a flight leaving from one of the remote gates, you will find yourself getting exercise on your 1 mile trek to your "closer" gate, whether you like it or not. I would pretty much fly into any other airport but this one.

JFK (New York City) - Ah...how I love Jetblue but hate Terminal 6. Actually, departing from JFK is often times quite smooth and stress-free. However, trying to locate your car service for pick-up is an entirely different story. It is consistently a zoo at the Arrivals area so I'd recommend trying to meet your party at Departures instead.

OAK - Oakland airport has never been my favorite because it requires me to take the unpredictable Bay Bridge back home to lovely San Francisco. However, I find myself flying out of there more and more because 1) I park onsite for $22/day and 2) it experiences far fewer weather delays than SFO. It's also gotten a lot better in the last year or so in terms of food and general amenities.

SFO - I love SFO simply because it's damn close to me. However, it is notorious for delays to any kind of blip in the weather - fog, rain, drizzle, perhaps a cloud passing across the sun momentarily . . .

Seeing this list of airports is making me re-evaluate whether I need a blog....or a personal life. Hmm. Until next time, happy flying!