International stop overs...Europe

[vivian02]

Just returned from a wonderful cruise in Europe. My wife was concerned with the langage barrier since we were flying into Frankfurt and Barcelona. We had a very enjoyable flight and trip until we caught our last transfer out of LAX. Here is what happened.

Our flight out of Frankfurt back to Phoenix first took us into LAX with a layover time of two hours. The flight on a 747 was really enjoyable although the flight was 11 hours and 10 minutes. We arrived in Los Angelas 35 minutes late. No panic since I knew once we had the luggage it was just a matter of getting through customs, the Agriculture people and then to our gate which we did not know. I did know we would be landing at Terminal 1 and the flight out would be out of Terminal 7. Customs went very smooth and once over to the luggage area nothing was coming out. Finally after a full thirty five minute wait on the luggage we had our bags. One hour and five minutes to go. We got though the Agriculture folks with no problems except for a congested line of people. The next stop was the Airlines specialist which is there to route your laggage to the correct location for our final destination. At this point we were informed our luggage would not make it to Phoenix because of the time constraints. We have 40 minutes to get our luggage down to terminal 7 and have it checked in down there. The specialist told us "RUN". Cathy and I are in our fifties but that didn't hold us back we got a luggage cart and moved like all get out. By the way understand that at LAX there is a total of something like 14 Terminals. Going from Terminal 1 to Terminal 7 is like running half way across the airport. After what felt like fifteen minutes we come to terimal 7...yea terminal 7 International, then terminal 7 Cargo and then a sense of releif once I see a information booth with my Airlines marked on it. I immediately tell the lady our situation and show her our tickets. Remember we are speaking English not German or Spanish. Her reply was "Why didn't the specialist put your luggage through?" Our reply was because the speialist said if we didn't get it checked in at terminal 7 the luggage wouldn't make it. Her reply" Don't raise your voice with me." Her advice was to take the luggage back to Terminal 1 as she pointed in that direction! I immediately told her we were on a 11 hour flight out of Frankfurt Germany and the customer sevice was exceptional until I got to Lax and her information was very lacking. Boy did it feel good telling her the truth. Cathy found an elevator and we tried going up one floor. This now put us in the departure area of terminal 7. We walked about 100 yards and found the ticketing area with two separate lines. I just told Cathy the first one of us in line to reach a ticket clerk tell them the situation. I was first to get to a young lady I'll call her Susie Q. Immediately this sharp lady realized our situation and told the wife to wheel the luggage over to the roped off area. She moved our luggage ahead of the others and informed me that our gate was gate "80". She said to get up one more floor and clear security. There was no hesitation as we ran back to the elevation even though we wanted to hug Susie Q. What a contrast to the lady at the information desk at Departures. There was a small line at security but within 5 minutes we got through. Now to gate 80 and will our plane still be there? Fortunately gate 80 was the first gate and low and behold we had 9 minutes to spare. Now I am realizing that the Airline Rep Specialist was correct with the information he gave us. The lady at the information desk was passing the buck and just didn't want to deal with us. That was probably why she was sitting at the information desk, she couldn't do much of anything else so that was just a convinent place to put her. Thank goodness for employees like Susie Q, if it wasn't for her quick response to our needs we never would have made the plane. Cathy remarked that there were people with Star Aliance tickets at our gate and how come they made the flight? I asked one of the people and they said their luggage made the plane but they didn't. Turns out they flew out of Munic not Frankfurt. Yes we made it with time to spare. For those flying International flights with stop overs be very careful about LAX. I'm sure its not like this all the time but it sure can be a pain in the rear even speaking the same lanuage. Anybody else out there have a similar experience. Tim and Cathy

 

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