figured that flying on friday would be ok, that everything would have been worked out at that time.
nope.
got to CMH about an hour before my flight (about 9:45 am EDT). walked into the door, saw 100 people waiting at the check in desk. went back outside, gave my 1 case and $10 to the skycap, breezed through security (everyone was stuck at check in), and sat at the gate. no plane, 45 minutes before we're supposed to leave.
about 30 minutes later the plane appears, but just as it turns toward the gate, a lightning storm passes through, which stops all ground ops. the plane can't pull into the gate without ground crew so just sits there. about 45 minutes later it finally pulls in, pax unload, we board, and we leave an hour and 15 minutes late. not a big deal, i had a 3 hour layover in atlanta anyway.
get to atl, get a chicken sammich and an iced tea, and settle in at my gate, an hour to go. plane's there ("california one"). the gate agents start announcing that they have pilots, but only 1 FA of the 3 required, so the flight is getting delayed.
this goes on. and on. and on.
a pilot who came by the charging bank i had stationed myself at started talking to us, and explained that these delays and cancellations happening 2 days later were basically echoes of the original wave of cancellations. ATL is a crew base, with lots of pilots and FAs who work out of it. but, many of them live elsewhere and catch an SWA flight to their base. he himself lived in fort lauderdale. so, if the flight they were pax on was cancelled or delayed, it would keep echoing later. he checked our flight on the gate computer and figured that our 2 FAs were stuck in jacksonville as their flight had been cancelled.
now, there are backup FAs available, especially at a place like ATL. but, they'd already been used for other flights that hadn't gotten their assigned FAs earlier in the day.
eventually they announce they are giving "goodwill vouchers" because we're all just waiting there. i don't have a problem because the people i was meeting in new orleans were stuck in baton rouge traffic (never drive eastbound on 10 from across the river through baton rouge on friday afternoon).
a few minutes after i get my voucher, on comes the inevitable announcement that our flight was cancelled. they said they'll start processing everyone for rebooking/accomodations and had a supervisor coming. they also said any gate agent could help. so i sped on down the concourse looking for one not already dealing with a throng of people.
i found one, and she told me the next flight to new orleans was 2 pm the next day. i took it, along with the hotel voucher, meal voucher, and another travel voucher.
i took all my paperwork, and, it being about 6 o'clock and me having only had a single chicken sandwich to eat, tried to figure out how best to spend the meal voucher. i had just about decided on a bunch more chicken sandwiches when i was paged.
i'd never been paged in an airport before. i figured i'd left something down at the gate agent's booth, having already left a boarding pass at one in dallas earlier this trip.
when i got there i whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. if anything i could say that this cab was rare but i thought man forget it yo homes to bel-air.
the gate agent told me that there was a flight to tampa that had been delayed a bunch, so she could get me on it and then on to new orleans, to arrive about 10:15. better than leaving the next day, so i took it.
tampa flight landed during a lightning storm. no fun turbulence though. i deplane, check my departure gate on the big board, go over to the gate and it says the plane is for islip, not new orleans, even though we're within an hour of when it's supposed to leave. i check the big board again to make sure i have the right gate, and settle in.
about 10 eastern they came on the intercom and say the new orleans plane has arrived, but it had to wait for the islip one to leave before they could start boarding. someone with some authority had the bright idea to use the empty gate of the 2 gate pair, so we started boarding. leave 30 minutes late, at 10:15 eastern.
about this point i start to wonder if my bag that i had skycapped all those hours earlier is going to make it.
well, i got off the plane in new orleans at 10:45 pm CDT, 7 hours and 35 minutes later than scheduled. i go right to the baggage check and notice a lot of bags set out in neat rows in front of the baggage office.
i kept on going as i figured that the plane from tampa would only have started unloading (i was in the front). but, i noticed a bright colored small case a few rows in an a few bags back. thinking to myself there's no way, i went over and checked. sure enough, it was my bag. they must have flown that plane from atlanta to new orleans (it had pilots) and just dropped off everyone's bags.
anyway, what should have been about a 7 hour trip from first leaving the house in columbus to the hotel in new orleans wound up taking 15 hours, or 2 hours longer than if i'd have driven. it also made me miss out on getting chargrilled oysters at drago's in metarie.
/shortstorylong
/notnuclearned
/csb