It turns out today's flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles is even later than we thought. Takeoff is delayed from 1:30 to 2:15 PM. We found out it was because of crew scheduling problems.
A month or so ago American Airlines sent me two free passes to any of their Admirals Clubs, those are their private lounges -- "An Oasis Away From The Airport Hustle." In Honolulu they share Japan Air Line's private lounge. There are comfy places to sit and snooze, lots of magazines, computer hookups, free drinks and snacks. And great places to kill time waiting for a flight. Before I retired I was a member for many years.
The lounge at Honolulu International also has an officious man from JAL who came up to us and said he didn't want to seem rude... (And let me pause here a second, whenever anybody says to me that she or he doesn't mean to be rude, the next thing out of his or her mouth is usually
something rude.) He went on to accuse us of smoking in the no-smoking lounge area. He said someone had reported us. He did not speak with anybody else in the lounge although there were several people who matched our general descriptions. When we told him emphatically we had not been smoking he walked away without another word to us. Of course why should he say he was sorry for insulting us when he so clearly was not.
A few minutes later the woman representing American Airlines customers in the lounge came over to us and brought the subject up again and in a very sarcastic way. It seemed obvious they wanted us to leave the Admirals Club and we did at once. So much for
Aloha Spirit.
In the future, if there are smokers on the premises, perhaps they should make an announcement "reminding" guests not to smoke.
The flight itself was uneventful and the seats were the real first class kind with lots of control buttons. The seats could lie completely flat.
Once we landed in Los Angeles there was no gate for us and we had to wait for one. Then it took forever to get the shuttle to the Hilton but when we got there the room was lavish. Too bad we were just there for a nap. We got to the room around 11:00 PM and needed to be at the airport by 6:00 AM at the latest.
