Today a few day ago, in the morning, the entire Mumbai airport was empty, except two islands – E and F. These two had probably 500 people in serpentine queue that spilled till outside the airport terminal. And these were of the Air India check in counters. And I was flying with Air India.
This anyway sounds like a horror story for people who take flights often and since this was 5:30 in the morning, most people in the queues were in zombie state and in various stages of anger, resignation and restlessness.
I was mentally prepared to skip the flight and take the next one only to not stand in the queue. My bank balance is testimony to my stupidity to avoid queues. In fact, I’ve have designed my life to avoid traffic and queues as much as I can. I leave painfully early in the day to reach painfully early and often the coffee shops that I’ve made into safe havens (from traffic) are still not open. I come back late in the night when the only traffic on the road is from folks who are drunk on life and high on social dos. I dont go to meetups outside of walking distance of where I live. I choose to work from a Starbucks that is a stone’s throw away. And now that there is an airport about 15 mins from my home in Delhi, I try and take flights to that one (just that Air India doesn’t fly there).
Coming back to the sea of sleepy people on the platform for check-in.
Thankfully, I asked one of the ladies about a different counter for Gold members. And she pointed me to a hidden island. Just at the mention of that, I jumped like 100 feet in the air.
Now, at the counter for Gold and above, there were more airline staffers than the passengers. There were more counters open than the wait staff hoping to usher people into those empty counters.
And at the counter, there were more ushers than the travellers to tag the bags with such care as if they were fragile babies. And they placed your bags on to the belts as if they were handling a radio active substance. And no, there was no drama about extra weight on the bags. Not for my bag. Not for pther people’s bags. You could just take as much. I saw a family of 4 with enough bags to start a new life. May be they were on the way to do that!
And then as I walked from there to security, I could see the security area was so empty like it was plagued. I tried to pass through it but I was stopped by the security folks because I was in premium economy. Lol, oxymoron.
Luckily since the airport was empty, save for the Air India islands that was moving slower than a snail, the general area security queues were non-existent and I could breeze through that. So the long queue at check-in did work in my favor.
But the point is, if I didnt have this Gold Card that I bought (not earned; as part of Vistara Credit Card that I’ve since closed) I would have been mindfucked. And I would have spiralled into a dungeon of fuckery and drudgery.
I think the validity of my card extends till beginning of next year (about 2 months to go). I thus need to find a way to get the Gold status again. I dont take enough flights anymore to earn the status by itself but I am willing to pay a card fee to acquire this to avoid hassle. Lemme research on that.
In fact, I think I should encourage each of my people to get this gold thing. I think it’s worth the money, especially because air travel is such a high involvement service!
Oh, btw, I wrote this from a premium economy seat that was not very comfortable. I prefer the emergency exit seats. And the next milestone in life is to only fly business class. I think I am 5 years away from that. Let’s see if I can make it happen any sooner.
Over and out!