of airports and stupidity

I almost almost missed my flight to Singapore last Friday because of my stupidity. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8:20pm. To beat the rush hour traffic, I left the office early and arrived at Suvarnabhumi with plenty of time to spare. I was told at the check-in counter that the walk to the gate would take around twenty minutes (!) so I window-shopped close to the gate to be safe. After a nice hotdog from Dairy Queen, I sat just outside the final security check area for Concourse F. I wanted to finish the bottle of water I had just bought before they confiscated it.

I savoured each drop of water and took my own sweet time. I finally went through security check and arrived at my gate 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Except when I got to the gate, there was no sign of my flight. No sign, no passengers, no ground staff. I looked at my boarding pass and I realized that not only was I in the wrong gate, I was in the wrong concourse! Somehow I had assumed that the departure gate would be the same as the one for the exact same flight I took two weeks earlier (F2 - don’t ask me why), so I didn’t even bother to check. When I realized my mistake, I ran like mad all the way to E10, which of course had to be at the very end of concourse E. I got there sweaty and out of breath just as they were closing the gate. At least I made it.

Other passengers beware, Suvarnabhumi looks great but it’s actually not that passenger friendly. Put on your running shoes because you will be walking and walking and walking…whether or not you do something stupid like me.