En Route

Flight to Washington took off to the unhappy screams of a four year old boy, who kept wailing he did not want to fly, and why can't we go by bus? It looked like a long trip to Orlando and Disneyworld for his parents but a few minutes later he was happily chirping that he loved to fly. Saw the New York skyline and the gradual loss of winter as we approached Washington's early Spring. Good Bye winter. Just a brief two hour stop. We helped an 80 year old Turkish woman, who spoke no English, to board as United Airlines staff seemed intent on ignoring her. I spoke to them but received a rude answer that it was basically not their problem. Fortunately the aircrew were much more humane and she was met with a wheel chair and ground staff in Los Angeles who looked after her. On boarding I could't help but think how ridiculous the US can be. There seemed to be about five different categories of first class, a business class, an executive class, frequent fliers over 100,000 Miles, those over 50,000 , gold club members, all who boarded before us, shoehorned in lowly steerage. It was only in Auckland where common sense prevailed and the back of the plane boarded first.

Washington, United States