12 April 1997 Ottawa Canada
The other problem with asking a passer-by for assistance is they
may know the terminal less than you do or speak no English.
I generally find self-identifying myself to an airline with
things like travelling with guide dog etc or assistance with
getting from counter to gate pays off.
One time U.S. Air had 3 people with guide dogs, me one of them,
booked into one row of a 767.  Someone from the airline was
discussing the matter with the two other travellers, a
husband/wife who both have guide dogs and mentioned the name of
the other passenger to them but said they didn't know if the guy
had a dog or not.
Well I did and funny part was I was like sitting about 5 feet
away from them.  Decided to keep quiet as my dog and I seemed
invisible to the airline staff and let them figure out what to do
when I boarded.
Wound up across the aisle in someone's wife's seat and guy wasn't
impressed, but I said this is where the airline person told me to
sit, the complaints department is the Captain up front.
If you have a white knuckle flier next to you, you can really
make their day by recounting stories of problems with take-offs,
like not getting into the air by end of the runway and getting
stuck in the mud, landing in the harbor while trying to take off
and how landings are even more dangerous as the bird is low on
fuel and has tons of fumes in the fuel tanks which are many more
times more explosive than jet fuel in the liquid form.
At least if you fly Geronamo Airways, you expect to jump out of
the airplane as it is the choice of professional sky divers.  But
scares the bejeevers out of Seeing Eye dogs.
... Tag line thievery ... On the next Geraldo!
--- Blue Wave v2.12 [NR]
---------------