Flying Through Brazil

[Martin Hash]

My wife, Gwynne & I, spent 4 months traveling through South America while my Medical School application was pending. The school wanted me to do a live interview, and they wouldn't accept Skype or Facetime, so I was forced to book a flight out of Chile to Los Angeles but, of course, there was a once-in-a-generation snowstorm, so I missed my flight, and had to reschedule out of the most Southern city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina, through Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Miami, Florida.

Flights-are-flights, and I've been on a lot of them, but this one was particularly grueling, making us sleep overnight in the airport at Sao Paulo, and worse, even though I could see my luggage on the carousel through the doorway between the International terminal & the Domestic terminal, I could not go through the opening because I had no Brazilian visa, so no luggage for me. I even asked the guard if he'd go put the bags on the Connecting carousel but he just looked at me like I was American scum.

Sao Paulo Airport.jpg

The interview went fine, 15 minutes of pap, but Miami was nice, and the tip of Argentina was snowy, so Gwynne & I relaxed a day before heading back to Miami International Airport for the Round-trip back to continue our South American travel. We checked out of our room, turned in the rental car & went to the Avianca Brasil airline travel counter inside a glass-walled side room. We got there 8 hours early because that's how our Travel Radar works and stood in line for half-an-hour before facing a Brazilian airline counter-person. Her English was accented but good, and things went okay for the first 5 minutes while she was checking the computer before she turned to me and said I couldn't board the flight.

Miami Avianca.jpg

It was not that great of a surprise, I've been through this kind of thing before; why, I asked, couldn't I travel. Well, because I would have to walk through that archway into the Domestic terminal in Sao Paulo & I didn't have a visa, and, she scolded, my travel agent should have warned me.
“I booked through your airline,” I said.
“They should not have sold you the ticket,” she said, superiorly.
“I flew here through Sao Paulo,” I answered.
She thought for a moment, had no snarky response. “You'll need to wait,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
We stood there for a minute or two.
“You need to let the next person in line come through,” she ordered.
“I'm not moving until this is straightened out,” I replied.
Like I said, I've been in situations like this before; if I let them shuffle me off, that would be the end of it. This was going to be a battle of sophisticated traveler verses airline employee who couldn't give a damn. We stood face-to-face for five or ten more minutes. The line of waiting passengers was building up behind me. Eventually, the counter-person went away and got someone else.
This new counter-person explained to me that I had to wait until tomorrow before they could do anything. I didn't move.
Hours went by. The line behind me was really getting pissed off. My wife told me how pleased she was that I had kept my temper. Normally, I give as good as I get but that never turns out well in a bureaucratic confrontation, so I just held my ground.
Eventually, another Brazilian person, a manager who had been called in from home, was in front of me. She tried to explain why I would have to wait until tomorrow.
“What will you do tomorrow?” I asked.
She didn't know. She couldn't think of how to fix the problem.
“Why don't you book me out the same way I got in?” I asked.
Apparently, no one had thought of that, and,anyway, they didn't know how to do it.
“You don't know how to change a booking?” I asked, incredulously.
She went away.
About an hour later, she came back and started typing on the computer. “I'll need to reserve you a new flight,” she said.
“Okay.”
“We don't do One-way trips, you'll need to book a Round-trip ticket.”
“Okay.” I guess she thought I would bolt at the price, but at this point, I'd spend whatever I needed to.
“What day do you want to return?”
“I'm not coming back here.”
“I need to put in a date.”
“Look at your schedule, and book the cheapest date,” I suggested.
She fiddled around for a while. “I did that but now there are no seats available on the flight from Miami to Sao Paulo.”
“Isn't it the same flight I'm on now?” I asked.
“Yes, but there's no seats available,” she answered.
“What about my seats?”
“I don't know how to do that,” she said.
I didn't reply.
She left for another hour or so. The people in the line behind me had long since sit on the floor, or sprawled up against the wall, waiting. I'm sure they hated me.
When she came back, she gave me some tickets, and said “thank you, Mr. Hash,” in her accented but perfect English.
I got Gwynne & we went to the Security gate. While waiting, I looked at the cost: turns out I ended up making $500 on the deal after all the chargebacks and rebookings. We used the money to buy souvenirs in Ushuaia.

Ushuaia.jpg

[C-Mag]

I hear it's not as bushy down there as it used to be.