What do Chicago, Honolulu, Kona, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia all have in common that Kahului, Maui does not? The answer is an efficient airport check-in system.
Three weeks ago my wife and I arrived at Philadelphia International Airport on our way to Hawaii. From arrival to the time reached the gate was about 15 minutes. It took even less time at Kona International Airport on the Big Island a week later on our way to Maui. Then came our nightmare. Just a few days ago it took two and a half hours from our arrival at Kahului International Airport to the time we reached the gate.
Why Can't We Select Our Seats?
Our troubles all began months ago when we purchased our tickets using united.com. We were able to book all of our flights but found that we could not select seats on the return flight from Kahului to San Francisco. We tried every few weeks to select seats by calling United Airlines' toll-free number. We were consistently advised that we would need to do so when we arrived at the airport for check-in.On the morning of our flight we tried one more time and received the same response. Figuring that we were in for trouble, we arrived at Kahului Airport at 9:00 p.m. for an 11:30 p.m. departure. We soon learned that the line for United check-in weaved its way out of the terminal and about a hundred yards down the sidewalk. The line contained not only travelers for United's three remaining evening flights out of Maui, but also for Air Canada's 11:25 p.m. flight to Vancouver for which United was handling check-in.
Two hours later we finally had made our way near the front of the line. Figuring that few passengers on our flight could have possibly arrived earlier than us, we felt sure that we would get seats together.
EasyCheck-in?
Suddenly, a somewhat worried United Airlines employee asked us what flight we were on. When I told her, she pulled me from the line and over to an EasyCheck-in machine hidden next to construction at the back of the terminal. Inserting my United Mileage Plus card, I was able to obtain our boarding passes. Looking at them, I noticed that my wife and I had been assigned seats in two different rows. The machine did not provide luggage tags.We were told to leave the normal check-in line and move to a line for "baggage check-in only" - since we now had our boarding passes.
You need to understand that at Kahului International Airport getting to the front of the line only means that you are able to have your bags hand examined by a TSA agent. Unlike every other airport we've used since 9/11, only Kahului does this manually before you reach the agent.
By the time we were called to the next available agent we had dropped about five places back from where we would have been had we just stayed in the original line! When we asked the agent about changing seats, she advised us that she couldn't help us. We would have to discuss this with the agent at the gate.
After a long walk from check-in to security, (where we were required to remove our shoes contrary to recent TSA standards), we faced an even longer walk to the gate.
One Last Try at the Gate
We arrived at our gate as most other passengers had already boarded the plane. How all of these folks made it there before us will forever remain a mystery to us. Did they all know to arrive more than two and a half hours early? Surely not. Maybe the used Porter Service? Surely not all of these other passengers. We have no idea what secret they knew that we didn’t.The United Airlines gate agent switched our seats but still had us in different rows. Why she even bothered we could not figure out. Maybe she thought that any change would please us.
We were one of the last passengers to board the plane. We never could speak to each other on the flight. Luckily the flight itself was without incident and the flight crew was as friendly as any could be expected on a red-eye when most of the passengers were asleep.
Hindsight is Always 20/20
In hindsight, we probably should have headed right to that EasyCheck-in machine when we arrived, but no one told us about it. In Philadelphia those machines are only for passengers without luggage.The fact that we were in line with hundreds of Canadians leaving the USA probably slowed us up. Kahului's setup where luggage is hand-checked before gate check-in just slows things up even more. We were told that Kahului has no room to do that "in the back." (Somehow Kona and Honolulu manage that without slowing up check-in.)
We never could figure out why we were unable to choose our seats online when we booked our trip back in late summer.
