Egypt 2009 - Day 1

Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 – Fly from Denver to Cairo 

I live in Colorado Springs, CO. Since I was flying out of Denver instead of Colorado Springs, I drove to Denver the day before and stayed in a hotel near DIA (Denver International Airport). Why was I flying out of Denver instead of Colorado Springs? Well, it was because my tour company - Go Ahead Tours - had everybody booked on an Egypt Air flight to Cairo that left at 6:30 PM. They could not get me from Colorado Springs to JFK in New York City in time to catch the flight on an airline that was an aliance member with Egypt Air namely US Air or United. Initially they had had booked me on Delta. I was concerned about being able to check my luggage through to Cairo and Go Ahead could not guarentee that I'd be able to so. I suggested changing my gateway to Denver. This worked much better as I was able to fly US Air to JFK through Charlotte, NC. Go Ahead did charge me $50 more for changing my gateway.

A 4 AM wakeup call woke me up. I got dressed, checked out, drove to the long term lot (Pikes Peak lot), caught the shuttle bus to the US Airways terminal area. Check in was pretty simple. Go Ahead had sent me actual paper tickets for the trip. They had been issued by Egypt Air and contained all segments of the trip to Cairo and back on one ticket. I had no problem checking my luggage through to Cairo. Passing security was uneventful and I arrived at my departure gate with plenty of time to spare. The flights to JFK were pleasant. I had the coach bulkhead row between Denver and Charlotte, NC and I was in the next row back on the segment between Charlotte and JFK. So far so good.

A 4 AM wakeup call woke me up. I got dressed, checked out, drove to the long term lot (Pikes Peak lot), caught the shuttle bus to the US Airways terminal area. Check in was pretty simple. Go Ahead had sent me actual paper tickets for the trip. They had been issued by Egypt Air and contained all segments of the trip to Cairo and back on one ticket. I had no problem checking my luggage through to Cairo. Passing security was uneventful and I arrived at my departure gate with plenty of time to spare. The flights to JFK were pleasant. I had the coach bulkhead row between Denver and Charlotte, NC and I was in the next row back on the segment between Charlotte and JFK. So far so good.

Then I arrive at JFK. This was my first time at JFK and my first problem was trying to figure out where my gate was for the Egypt Air flight. I arrived at Terminal 7 on US Air and none of the monitors had my Cairo flight listed. I asked the agent at a United gate where Egypt Air was and she informed me that I would have to GO OUT OF SECURITY, out of the terminal and catch the elevated tram to Terminal 4. My first reaction was “you’ve got to be kidding me”. She confirmed that indeed that was what I had to do. Great! Now understand that I am not a novice at international travel. I will fly over 50,000 miles this year and so far, I have been to over 30 different foreign countries in the 21st Century. I can’t think of any other airport in the US where you have to go out of security and back in to connect to an international flight. Once out of security and on the tram, I realized that the terminals were spread out from each other and there appears to me no connectivity between the terminals behind security. This airport definitely needs to modernize to the 21^st Century. Lord please spare me from ever having to go through JFK again.

My problem was increased by the fact that I did not have a boarding pass for the flight to Cairo yet. I had a ticket, but not a boarding pass. When I checked in at Denver, the US Air agent simply told me to pick up my boarding pass at my departure gate. Now that I was out of security, I had to have a boarding pass to get back through security to my departure gate. That meant checking in again at the Egypt Air counter. I arrived at the counter to find a seemingly endless line of people checking in with their luggage. A lady was directing the traffic at the gate telling people where to go. I went to her and explained that I had already checked in at Denver and just needed my boarding pass and that I had paper tickets. She escorted me to the Business / First Class line and told me that I could get my boarding pass there. There was only one family in front of me so this was a much smaller line. I soon had my boarding pass in hand and was heading to security. This went pretty fast. It was interesting because many of the people going through security were not familiar with the US security procedures. Taking off shoes and jackets, removing laptops from the bag and putting liquids in a Zip Lock quart size bag was new to them.

Once clear of security, I walked towards the gate and soon I was greeted by Kathy, Marianne, Beth and Pat. I had not eaten since breakfast and was hungry so I ordered food and a beer. We all visited until boarding time. I boarded and found my seat.

About the flight: This was a 10 hour flight on a Boeing 777. Every other 777 that I have been on looked fairly new, was clean and had individual entertainment monitors in the seat backs. This plane has little resemblance to my previous experiences. It had a grungy look to it and had only monitors hanging from the ceiling. It was a full plane and I saw no empty seats. The windows were so dirty and scratched up that visibility out the windows looked out of focus. I tried to adjust the head rest on my seat and it fell off into my hands. There were 6 lavatories in the coach cabin. Of these, two appeared to not be available at all during the long flight. The sign said occupied and the light was on, but I never once saw anybody come out or go in. That leaves 4 lavatories to service some 300 passengers on a 10 hour flight. The lavatories were grungy but not too terribly disgusting at the start of the flights. Near the end, they were thoroughly disgusting with the floor wet with standing liquid puddles. I won’t speculate as to what the liquid was. On the plus side, they did show several movies none of which I had seen before, the food was edible and we were on-time. That is about the best that I can say of the flight.

(Sorry, I took no pictures on this day.)