Washington Dulles International Airport:
We reach Washington Dulles around 1:40 pm in the afternoon. Soon we get transported to a mobile lounge to be taken to the International Arrivals Building. There all the wheelchairs are waiting for its passengers. The person takes us to the 1st floor where our customs will be cleared. There are actually 2 lines from here. One is for the citizens and one is for the non-citizens. The line for non-citizens must be 3 times longer than the line for the citizens. Since my dad was in wheelchair, we passed through that line and went straight to the officer's counter. The officer asked us couple of questions like "why did we go to India?", "What did we buy?", and "roughly how much do we think the items are worth in total?", etc. and then stamped our passports and we were off to the baggage claim. I got to tell you that since last time I was at Washington Dulles airport, this building has been remodeled because from what I remember, the place was very small that everyone would be bumping into each other. But this time, it's big and very spacious. In fact, they have new baggage claim conveyor belts that are longer and the space is enough to handle all the passengers from 2-3 international flights at the same time.
I swore last time I was at Washington Dulles that I will not fly though here again but the remodeling of the place has changed my opinion. Last time, our baggage came almost after 2 hours and this time, almost all the bags had already arrived before we even got there, only to find one bag in complete surprise. One of the bags was in such a bad condition that its chain and lock were completely broken and things were falling out of the small space. Thankfully, due to the tag/string that they put in the middle of the bag in Ahmedabad held the bag together otherwise we would have nothing left in the bag. Also we had tied the belts inside the bag which held things in place but still it was not enough as there was a possibility of things falling out when they transfer the bags. Unsure on what to do, we took the bag in whatever condition it was in and headed to the transfer desk. Unfortunately, we had nothing with us that we could use to tie the bag with. We went to the transfer area where we needed to transfer our bags for the connecting flight. I asked the agent who was going to screen the bags before transferring if he would be able to tape the bag or tie the bag somehow to prevent things from inside falling out. He assured me that they can take care of it and told me to just leave the bags.
It was a bit of relief to get an assurance from the agent who said they will be able to take care of it once the bag is screened. We leave our bags and head to the next flight gate. All of this process must have taken us anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours. And I was worried that we might miss our flight if we keep the connecting flight at 5:30 pm. It turns out that we were done by 3:30 pm and it would have been nice if I had kept the flight at 5:30 pm, BUT I did not. Instead I had assigned our flight times to be at 9:50 pm at night which would get us home after 12 am :(. Well I had decided late flight simply from my last experience at Washington Dulles. Who knew that they are going to remodel the place to make it better and faster for the passengers? Well, we had no choice but to wait till our flight. We were all so tired that we were falling asleep on the seats near the gate but at least one of us had to stay up since we had 3 carry-on bags, 1 purse, 1 hand bag, and a computer bag with us.
From Washington Dulles, we had to catch the United Airlines, so we were in Terminal C. Now, this terminal is pretty small compared to Terminal A and B, and it can get very congested near a gate close to a flight departure. I was just waiting for the time to fly and ready to go home. Finally, we boarded around 9:20 pm, and flight took off on time. We reach Denver earlier than scheduled and head to get our bags. Thankfully, all the bags come back in one piece and in good condition except the one that was ripped apart from Washington Dulles itself. The agent who told me that he will take care of the bag by taping it somehow to keep it together did not do anything!!! The bag was as it is we received in Dulles airport and he didn't do anything to keep it together. It was late and I didn't have energy to get mad. And who am I going to get mad at? It was just some agent at the Dulles airport, not a particular employee of United Airlines or Qatar airways. We gathered our bags and headed to pick up area where one of our family friends came to pick us up. We got home around 1 am and I was wide awake :P. I wasn't sleepy at all, but had to force myself to sleep to avoid jet-lag.
About the damaged bag, I had to follow up on it with Qatar airways and that can be a separate post in itself :). Till then, See ya. I will post the details on the damaged bag soon.
Tata!
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