I started writing this on my 3rd attempted flight to Las Vegas for the show, a week or so ago. Later I added about the flight back home (worse)!! But, the good news is that I finally made it home, the sorry story is now complete.
Be warned, this blurb is not about all the great things happening at CES 2023, or for that matter, last year’s show. It’s about how screwed up air travel is these days. In hindsight, my travel story is somewhat amusing. It was way less fun, at the time of each trip.
Consider this a light-hearted look at the “post pandemic” trials and tribulations I’ve suffered in trying to attend trade shows. Of course the CES show Jan. 2023 just happened, but. I’ll also tell you about two more trade show trip attempts, in the last 53 weeks!
This trade show nightmare really started January 2022, when I tried to get from Sarasota Florida to CES (always in Las Vegas). Now, Sarasota airport (SRQ) isn’t a huge airport. It’s got 14 gates. It’s a busy, but a small airport. (Consider that United has over 130 gates alone at Newark (EWR) airport, in just in one terminal.)
I should mention that I have attended CES about 40 times in my life, going back to my first in the 1970s! I’ve had press credentials since about 2003. Never had a problem getting there before.
Note that this year’s CES travel experience easily beats last year’s and my attempted CEDIA trip in September. Those were both failed attempted trips, this time I made it, but…
A year ago, I spent one night sleeping in Denver Airport trying to get to CES in a blizzard (in Denver, it was warm in Florida!).
Then, this past September, I found myself stuck in NYC trying to get to the CEDIA show (home custom installation show, everything that gets installed in a home, from home automation to in wall vacuum systems, lighting, home theater and more, and finally the nightmare experience of getting two and from CES 2023 in Las Vegas. Finally It took me three days of trying to get to Las Vegas this year, and two more to get home. That’s a lot of travel considering I got there late so only got to spend one day at the show. Here’s my sad story
Home is Sarasota Florida. Our airport (SRQ) requires a change of planes to get most places, especially heading west. I mostly had the equivalent problem living in Orange County CA (SNA – John Wayne airport), where about the only east coast area I could get a direct flight to, was the NYC area.
The tale begins:
CES 2022. My plans were easy, flying into Denver, a short layover, and then to Las Vegas. Too bad my flight from Sarasota was something approaching 2 hours late in leaving. Almost fortunately, my flight from Denver to LAS – Las Vegas, was also delayed about two hours. It really looked like I would catch the flight. But…
The real “fun” started when we landed. Unfortunately there was a blizzard in progress, just starting to get really bad, as we landed after 7pm.
How did I miss my DEN to LAS, with the plane long delayed? Everything was screwed up. We sat on the ground for I think an hour and a half watching bulldozers pile up snow, and the system “burning” the snow to melt it. The best part of that trip was that It was very cool to watch, (see photo), them burn snow, but that wasn’t getting me to Las Vegas from Denver.
First, our designated gate was broken/frozen, if I recall. Then they reassigned us another gate, but that had a plane in it, and they were short teams to back it out. (Or, my memory being less than perfect, perhaps it was the other way around.)
All the while I’m “watching the clock.” As I said, my connecting flight was being delayed further and further as well.
Well, finally we got to a gate. I rushed off to the plane, had to run about 150 feet through the terminal to the gate for my departing flight, only to learn that they backed out of the gate 5 minutes before. Screwed!
OK an hour or maybe two in the customer service line trying to get some assistance to get to Las Vegas. I believe it was around midnight. Best the airline could do, was put me on an early morning flight from Denver to San Francisco, layover, then to Las Vegas – Yuk.
Short version by the time I would get to Las Vegas, then to the press room to register, then to the show floor, it was going to be end of day. All of the almost 1 dozen meetings I had set up for that day, (and for the whole show) would be missed. I was traveling in on day two, so that would only leave me day three, and most of the marketing and product types I meet with, tend to be heading home on day 3. Disaster!
I gave up. The airline offered me a hotel for the night, but, remember that blizzard? Denver airport is far, very far, from Denver. All the hotels closest to the airport were already filled. The nearest hotels the airline still had available were at least half way to Denver. And I would have to find my own transportation there – and back – in a blizzard! And be back early in the morning!
Seriously? It was time to give up. I arranged to fly back home from Denver in the morning, skipping the show last year. I ended up sleeping in the Denver airport. That was “fun!” but could have been worse.
Yes, it really could have been worse – as they had some unmarked “transit areas” (see below) with a variety of semi reclining chairs and couches. I was lucky to find one such place, and a decent reclining chair. I figure I dodged the worst, because I already passed a couple hundred folks just hunkering down for the night on the carpet, or leaning against pillars or walls who were apparently unaware of these areas. I was happy to find a decent place to sleep, even if too bright. Good for me.
Can you say “The Terminal” – yep right out of Tom Hanks’ airport movie.
After surviving the night in Denver airport, I did get them to put me on a flight back home. In summary, I got just past half way there, but no further. Since the blizzard was part of the problem the airline didn’t seem to think this was their fault (but, they did offer the hotel room), so even though I never made it to Las Vegas. The blizzard didn’t look so bad in the morning, but it sure screwed my plans up!
I survived the night – it wasn’t pleasant, but I lived to tell about it. And United did get me home the next day, but I still had to pay for the flight to Las Vegas, despite never getting there. That’s not right!
As mentioned at the beginning, this disaster was in September (2022). The trade show was CEDIA – TVs, Home Theater, audio just about anything electronic that goes/gets installed into a home, t(hat even includes whole home vacuum systems, motorized shades… and appliances. CEDIA dealers are the folks that install all that stuff.
This time I was supposed to fly from Sarasota to Dallas. That should have been an easy – and direct flight. But wait!
Hurricane Ian!
My wife and I were in NYC area the week before the show. We were to fly home on Tuesday, and then I was flying out to Dallas on Thursday.
But wait!
Hurricane Ian hit So Florida Wednesday making landfall around 6pm, 35 miles south of our condo. United canceled our flight home on Tuesday! I can’t fully blame United, as and Sarasota airport was shut down Tuesday about the same time we would have landed, had United not cancelled. So, there I was in NYC with family, wrong clothing, etc., It wasn’t practical to fly from NYC to Dallas to the show, I needed to get stuff from home, (including old fashioned things like business cards), and I had my wife with me, and she doesn’t like to fly alone. So we stayed in NYC until we could get home Friday. Too late to go to Dallas… Alas.
Bottom line – I ended up missing CEDIA thanks to the Hurricane, United canceling my flight, and Sarasota (SRQ) airport closing before/after the hurricane.
BTW due to another canceled flight from Newark to Sarasota, a couple months before, I ended up in the Newark airport overnight – sleeping in airports twice in a matter of months. (that’s a total of 3 times in my life – two within the last 12 months, out of probably 400+ flights since the early 1980s when I started traveling a lot for biz I had about 7 years of heavy travel…
An interesting aspect of my overnight in Newark even not trade show related, was how United reacted to a “bad day” By the time I knew my flight wasn’t going to happen, early evening, I was able to book on the 7am flight in the morning. But, by the time I got into the Newark area – to drop off my rental car at the airport, it was already about 10pm. Other than water and snacks for the hundreds of stranded travelers in the terminal, and hundreds in line for customer service – (trying to find alternate flights – average wait time in the customer service line was 1.5-2.0 hours), not much happened. Fortunately, I managed to speak in passing to a supervisor who told me, that once almost all the flights leaving for the night were gone, United would bring out cots and blankets.
That was shortly before 1am. I grabbed one of the first cots, and a blanket. I walked it down to the gate I was leaving on in the morning, and set up shop. An hour or so later, there were a number of other cots near mine, and more around just about every gate.
Now the funny part of that. The cots were canvas on a frame. Every time one moved – sitting, lying down, turning on one’s side, etc., the cot would creak and squeak. Not just mine, but every cot!
I mean it was like being in a bird sanctuary. The constant squeaking/creaking and groaning of the cots was just about continuous. Almost white noise. I should have recorded the sounds at 3am. But I didn’t. Still, all those cots singing, was the “amusing highlight” of the overnight stay.
OK, landing now, finally in Las Vegas – 48 hours late. Time to wrap this up. I’ll finally get to CES, but only for one full day. Normally I need at least two. But, it will all work out.
Update: OK I’m home so here’s the rest of the story:
Getting home from CES 2023
I thought getting there was fun (not!). Getting home was even more frustrating.
After the show I spent a couple of days with my best friend who lives outside of Las Vegas. He dropped me off at the airport Tuesday morning around 10am for a 12:15 flight.
It was delayed and delayed. Finally it took off, but, it was going to be close. American showed that my connection to get back to SRQ from Charlotte was leaving on time. We were going to land, 3 minutes after the scheduled departure! (No, not again!)
Yes, again. While on the plane, American announced that several flights were being held for our plane, the one to SRQ was not one of them. I rushed off the plane (as did 16-17 other folks connecting to SRQ. No joy. The other gate was maybe 150 feet away. We could tell almost instantly, that the doors were closed, and the plane gone. (It had backed out, but, was still on the ground 20 minutes later – they could have waited!!!
No matter. Now I’m in Charlotte with no other flights to SRQ that night, so they put me on a 9am flight. By this time it’s about 10pm. What the hell, I’ll spend another night in an airport. It’s becoming a “thing”. Makes a good story, if nothing else. BTW I did not check a bag so had all my stuff with me.
Where to sleep? The darkest place I could find was in a large restaurant bar. Check it out. I spent the evening, and crashed on that booth/bench in this picture. Ugh! OK not a great night. Played computer games, wrote a little, and ultimately got a little unrestful sleep.
Ok I only did that because I’d have to be back at the airport 7am-ish. And I don’t know anything about Charlotte, and it was already past 10pm when I got my 9am flight the next morning set up.
Great, so I “wake up” at 7:30am only to find my flight is already 20 minutes delayed. So, no line at customer service. I approach, and suggest maybe I should take the next flight around 11am, since this one was already showing problems. They talked me out of it. Sure enough 30 minutes later they tacked on anther 1 hour delay. Back to the line.
Well, I can’t blame this next crisis on American.
This time it took the FAA to screw things up. Yep, you heard about it, the FAA shut down all the US airports due to a computer crash. Just great! – what else can go wrong?
Sure enough, then my delayed 9:06am gets canceled. Back in American’s customer service line. This time there are 30 people or so in front. 20 minutes later my options, as explained are:
- There would be no other flights to take me back to SRQ that day
- Best they could do is get me on a 6pm flight to Tampa – an extra 1 hour from home.
I booked that one. And to my amazement, it got me home. Well, to Tampa, and it wasn’t even very late leaving or getting me there. Bottom line, it took me about 23 extra hours to get home, nice work American Airlines!
That’s it. 5 different travel days “traveling” to/from on my round trip to Las Vegas, and to even my own amazement, I had 11 different boarding passes due to cancelled flights, rescheduling me, etc.
I sure hope I have better luck next show… -I sure hope you all enjoyed this nightmarish tale more than I enjoyed the experience. Thanks for reading! -art
