Glad To Be A Hoser

First off — always check to see if an airline is about to introduce a new computer system when they offer a seat sale. If they are, don't book it.

This is indeed what happened with our drastically-reduced-seat-sale-can't-believe-we-got-it-for-that-price AeroMexico flight. Let's just say that AeroMexico makes all the dodgy internal flight operators in Argentina seem like British Airways or Air New Zealand!

We begin what turns out to be a 24 hour journey back to North America by waiting 3 hours standing in line in Buenos Aires airport. This is just to check in. AeroMexico has a new computer system, we learn, that, apparently no one has been trained on. It is painful — for those waiting and for the poor service desk employees. Many of them look as though they want to cry — or maybe that is just me that looks that way! It is a reminder of travel during the pre-internet days, lining up for hours with paper tickets while everything got sorted out. Actually, it was probably faster then...

Our flight, surprisingly, is only delayed about an hour although we wait another 30 minutes after boarding the plane. The flight over to Mexico City isn't too bad other than there are apparently no flight attendents on board. There are, but we don't see them until we're about to land! Oh, and then there is the smoking on board. Somewhere, someone (methinks the absent flight attendents?!?) is smoking up a storm. The smoke is then filtered through those awful plane air systems. I disembark the plane with the feeling that I've smoked a pack.

Once in Mexico City, we wait for another hour for our bags to go through the rigamarole of being sniffed out by dogs (apparently packs of them!).... and that is before they even are allowed onto the baggage carousel. Finally, we are through customs and checked back in for our flight from Mexico City to LA. Except that is delayed another 3 hours.

The flight starts out listed on the board as being "On Time", but then, closer to the departure time, it just disappears. We rush back to the information centre many many times for updates and are shunted to different gates only to find there are no flights to LA there either. Then, in the far far corner of the terminal, we see a mad rush to line up. "That's gotta be it!" we cry and make a run for it. Sure enough it is.

I'm not a great flyer at the best of times so, when the entire plane shakes and rattles violently during take off, I am in tears, convinced it's Game Over. To my great surprise (and many others on the plane it seems as well) things calm down after several minutes in the air.

I jump at every bump for the rest of the flight though and prepare myself for a very rough landing.

The rough landing comes in the form of U.S. Immigration at LAX. We face another hour long wait in line after getting off the plane as each person ahead of us (Mexican, South American) is made to place first their thumbs, then their four fingers on a digital scan pad and finally get photographed before being allowed to enter the country.

We prepare for the worst. We fill out the immigration forms three times — the first time on the white forms only to realize we should be using the green forms. But the green forms provided on the plane are in Spanish. What if the officials think we're being smart asses, filling out the forms in a language we don't really speak?

When Customs Officer Doyle spots our Canadian passports, he chuckles. "You don't need these," he says and tosses our combination white-green-Spanish forms aside.

No finger scans. No photos. Just a verification of the passport, a stamp, some chit chat and we're through. We leave behind a long line of Argentinian and Mexican folk waiting to be 'processed.'

The second customs officer doesn't even glance at our declaration sheets as we pick up our bags and head out to car rental row.

The U.S. is building a world database of people one thumbprint at a time.

But, apparently it doesn't include Canadians.