a wrap on the vx launch of maui

just finished checking-in the last few maui guests bound for san francisco and i'm throughly BEAT.
earlier today, 5 minutes into opening the ticket counter, our entire system came crawling to a halt.

an hour goes by and still nothing. at this point we're about to start checking-in guests the old school way, which is hand writing manual boarding passes and bag tags. luckily our IT team found a fix moments before we pulled the trigger and we quickly checked everyone in. 

our entire VX team at OGG stepped up big time and we were able to knock out the whole flight way before we even began boarding.

this whole day has been nuts. our inaugural flight from sfo to ogg landed at 1340 and you could sense the jitters; not just from our own vx team, but from the rest of the ogg vendors around. our bird landed and was greeted by two water cannons provided by the ogg fire dept.

it was a beautiful sight to see, especially with the backdrop of the mountain accompanied by blue covered skies and fluffy clouds lingering behind.

im here for another 3 days and now that the biggest hump is behind us, i think ill start exploring a bit more and start working on my tan.

mahalo!

the jet-lag and off to maui

the jet-lag never was this bad. i guess three weeks is alot of time to be hanging on the other side of this planet but it also might be the fact that im just getting old. the jet-lag would usually last two days tops but its been six days now im still having trouble sleeping.

but yesterday i hopped on a flight from los angeles to maui and maybe working from maui might help. its an exciting time for virgin america and im thrilled to help open the new station. i also heard the poke and loco moco have therapeutic/sleeping agents  known to knock grown men out.

yes please.

monday was a pretty crazy day

my alarm went off at 4:00am but i snoozed a few times; i rolled my eyes, i didn't want to start the day. my flight to jfk was scheduled at 6:59am and there were two airport shuttles from downtown montreal that i could take: 5:01am or 5:31am. i knew it'd be risky but i went with the 5:31am not truly knowing how much of a risk it'd actually be.  

along the way these were some of the challenges that i encountered:

the shuttle was 10 minutes late 

my metro card for some reason wasn't reading but by thee grace of God the driver let me on

by the time i got to the american airlines counter, i was late for international check-in

the check-in lady must've felt sorry for me because the next thing i know she hands me a boarding pass and tells me "give it a shot, but we will not wait for you" that was all i needed. i thanked her and bolted towards the gates. i thought i had things in the bag but i quickly realized that it wasn't going to be that easy.

US customs and immigration is done at montreal airport so when i got to security the line was out of control. i was about to throw the cards and give it up but then i realized that there must be a global entry line somewhere! or not. 

i frantically looked but nothing, no signage, nada. i approached a security agent and asked him if there was a global entry line, he paused, my sphincter tightened, and then he slowly pointed. directly behind me, a few yards away, right next to the crew-member & airport employee line there was a sign that read global entry

my heart lepped. and yet again global entry saves the day. i've had global entry for a little over a year now and its probably one of the best $100 dollars i've ever spent. seriously. seriously seriously.

it was 6:25am when i got my customs slip from the kiosk and it was 6:35am when i got past the CBP officer. i was greeted by the pre-boarding announcement when i reached my gate. it was a sweet sound. there were so many variables in play that had to go my way in order to get where i was at. not just at the boarding gate but in general. a few minutes later i was given my seat and a moments later i was sitting in 18a waiting for push back.

i wish i could say that that was it but my day had only just begun. from new york i flew to san francisco and from there finally to seattle. it was long long day but thats the kind of job and life i signed up for. wouldn't have it any other way. God bless!