When I booked our flights the options seemed more limited than we usually see for some reason. Not sure if airlines are cutting back their schedules or if availability was the issue, but the tickets were generally more expensive than we were expecting. Enough so to give us pause and question if we were financially ready for this trip. There were a couple of lower cost options, but as usual the good price fares often have fine print and add-ons that quickly make you feel like you’ve just been baited and switched. Me: “$400 direct flight NYC to Rome? Sure that sounds good.” Me, two seconds later, “oh, wait I am not allowed even one carry on bag?” How am I supposed to live for two months with only the clothes on my back? I guess I need to consider the $150 upgrade that allows a carry on and one checked bag.” Nonetheless, I did the best I could to find our best deal and we bought tickets a while ago. One of the things that stood out at the time of booking was the fact that there was a layover of only 50 minutes in Stockholm. We would fly from Newark to Stockholm and then transfer to Rome. Would 50 minutes be enough time for us to get to the next gate? What are the options if we miss our connection? I was getting stressed just thinking about it. One of the other beauties of today's flight prices is the add-on of being able to choose your own seats. You can pay an upcharge today and choose your seats today and if you don’t take that route you will get a seat assignment at some later time. While El and I could fly sitting apart, we don’t necessarily want to. A few days ago I had some time and decided to try to secure our seats online. I logged into the airline website and navigated all the way to the “choose your seat section”. The seats that were already sold were blue. Another group of seats are grayed out and the key let me know that those are “reserved”. And bright green are seats that are available and once you select a green seat it should change to red to denote your selection. However, there was one slight issue...there were zero green seats! So, I am looking at an entire plane's worth of seats and none of them are available (all are taken or reserved)? Well, what could that mean? So, I called the airline and sat in my phone queue for 45 minutes to finally get someone on the line. I explained my situation and asked how I was supposed to get seats if none were available. She took my booking # and kindly reminded me that I bought the “cheap” tickets and that for an additional fee of $150 I could choose my seats today! But, if I could wait until 30 hours before flight time, all of the “reserved” seats would turn green and be available for me to pick. Somewhat relieved, I was good to wait until Tuesday to select my seats. Just as the agent was asking if there was anything else she could help me with today, I said ”you know, I do have one question…” I told her that our layover in Stockholm on the way was only 50 minutes and wanted to know if that was a standard amount of time as it seemed to leave very little to schedule disruption. She explained that actually the airports in Stockholm and Copenhagen are equipped to process a layover in only 45 minutes! Well, OK, that satisfied my curiosity and we were done. Tuesday, we were able to log into the airline website and sure enough the seat availability worked and we were all set in short order. Our plane left Newark on time and arrived in Stockholm at 7:45am. Our boarding pass tells us that our next leg begins boarding at 7:50 and takes off for Rome at 8:20. I confirm with the flight attendant that our baggage will be routed on to our final destination. I always forget (or don’t know the rules well enough) when you have to pick up your checked bags and when you have to go through passport control and customs. We were assured that our baggage would make it onto our next plane...but would we? Boarding begins in 5 minutes and we aren’t even off this plane yet! We exit the plane and are walking with purpose looking for signs that point us to international transfers. I am assuming they have some sort of high speed sorter that reads the barcodes on our baggage to route it properly to get stacked onto the new plane. We, on the other hand, have to walk down corridors that seem to stretch endlessly at the same time peeking at the clocks hanging throughout the terminal to see how we are doing on time. We know we are tight, but we should make it with a couple of minutes to spare so long as we don’t have to take a shuttle bus or monorail to another terminal. We are feeling OK, but our step still has some pep. We turn a corner and to our horror we see the unmistakable signs that say “EU Citizens to the left” and “All other passports to the right”! Why?! We are not at our final destination yet, wouldn't we go through passport control in Italy? Looks like passport control in Sweden is our only option. Luckily our fast walking had gotten us past most of the passengers from our plane who either walked slower or had to stop for a bathroom break immediately upon exiting the plane. We stand in line and it does seem to move pretty quickly. The sign says, “have your passport and vax card ready and remove your mask when approaching the window”. We are a little nervous knowing that this will add valuable time to our journey to the gate (luckily connection info is available on the plane so we were able to get our gate number without having to stop at a departures board to get the info). The people in the line are only at the window for a short time and we know this shouldn’t take as long as it does in JFK or Newark for example where many planes arrive at the same time and the arrivals hall can have line lengths that are out of control. We get up to the window and give our documents and the agent asks a few simple questions about where we are heading today and how long we will be at our destination. Just as we think she is going to hand back the docs, she asks if we have booked our return tickets. “Yes”, we reply. “Can you show me?” she counters! I am stunned for a moment thinking of how would I do this. All of our trip info is on my phone which has been turned off and is now somewhere in one of my bags. I usually have our itinerary printed out, but this time being gone for so long, I didn't even bother to print out our return info. El thinks she can access the info on her phone, but since we don't have a Swedish SIM card, we will need to sign into the airport's free wi-fi. I can’t see this being a quick process. After a couple of seconds- that felt like an eternity, the agent says “well, it’s not that important”, stamps our passports, and hands them over, we are on our way. Now we are trying to make up for lost time and once again heading down the hallways following the gate number signs. It’s now about 8:05...our plane leaves in 15 minutes (not to mention that planes will close the gates a few minutes before pushback that will prevent you from getting on even though the plane is still parked at the gate. We are running now until, the unthinkable at this point, happens. A security check!! What? Why the hell would passengers who just came from a plane where they were screened before boarding have to go through the screening process again?? There aren’t too many people in the line but every second counts and when you are this pressed for time, every second wasted frustrates exponentially. It is just after 8:05am, so it looks like not all of the workers have arrived for the day yet, so, picture this...it’s just one guy. He scans your boarding pass, looks at the screen where he wants to test and impress with his ability to pronounce each passengers name. “OK Ma-ree-ah Goon-zahl-ease, did I get that correct?”, “safe travels Ah-dumb Vahsh-ing-toon” then once he gets through 5 passengers, he tells the next in line to wait as he actually goes over and works the x-ray machine at the same time reminding people to take their laptops and liquids out and send them through on the belt separately. Now, when you get screened initially (like us in Newark) you can't have a bottle of water in your carry-on. But, when you pass through the checkpoint you can buy a bottle of water, or do what we do, bring an empty water bottle with us and then fill it at the water fountain near the gate. But, you don’t expect to be screened again. So a lot of people were now traveling with bottles of water- which are not allowed through this checkpoint. Most don’t think about having picked up a prohibited item after their initial screening back at their point of origin. We are absolutely screwed. It is now about 8:12 and we are having to open up our bags to dig to pull out our laptops and tablets, getting our bags on the belt. Of course he starts questioning the contents of our bags from the x-ray “whose bag is this? There is something inside I need to remove and inspect” Turns out it is a small bag of adapters and computer related chargers and wires. El is busted with a bottle of water she forgot she had, then my bag gets flagged and needs to have an item removed for additional scanning. The plane takes off in 6 minutes and we don't even know where the gate is yet, and we are still jerking with this guy who is scrutinizing our bags with considerably more vigor than the crew in Newark did last night. He is satisfied, but now we need to quickly stuff the removed items back into the bags, get them zipped up and make sure we don’t leave anything behind. We are working as quickly as we can considering if one should run ahead in hopes of reaching the gate first and being able to tell them the other is coming along shortly, but we decide we are in this together and wait for each other to get ready before setting off in unison. We are through the security check and running as fast as I can- the team is only as fast as the slowest of the two...me. I am doing the best I can, but running with my two carry-ons totaling about 30 pounds wearing a mask, is starting to underscore how out of shape I am. I still put in a good effort, but at some point your body starts asking just how much longer is this going to be...a question that I am sure I will be able to answer tomorrow morning as I try to get out of bed. We run past a large window where I can see our gate number written on the outside where the pilots can read it when pulling in. We are close, but we just have to make it to the end of the window and turn the corner. The clocks are reading 8:18 now. My mind is convinced the door has already been closed and the continued running is all for nothing. We will surely get there and see the faces of “ooh, sorry, you missed it by that much”. We round the corner and although the agents look like they are packing things up, by some miracle the plane is still open, they scan our passes and wave us on, closing the door behind us before we have even found our seats and overhead space for the bags. I’m gonna feel this tomorrow.
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