Thursday, August 24, 2006

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I can’t get home tonight...wait, yes I can…

My colleague, Tudor Williams, and I finished our work in a suburb of St. Paul and headed for the cab that was supposed to be waiting at 4:30 p.m. He showed up at 5:05 p.m., which worried me since it was raining and my US Airways flight to Phoenix (where I was connecting on to SFO) was scheduled to depart at 7 p.m. and my courtesy call from Orbitz indicated it was on time. Fortunately, there was no line at all at St. Paul security, and I got to my gate in time to find a weather delay had the flight rescheduled for 8:45 p.m.

I stood in line to find out about rebookings. I could get to Phoenix but no further, I was told; there were no later flights to San Francisco. What about through Vegas? I asked. Nope. How about flights to Oakland or San Jose? Nope. What about a Northwest flight to SFO? All oversold. Could I get my boarding pass for my new 7:05 a.m. flight the next day? Nope, you’ll have to get that in Phoenix.

So I booked a room at the Phoenix Airport Hampton Inn and headed back to a restaurant to have a beer with Tudor. Later, we strolled over to the Northwest lounge (my Priority Pass card got us in). I was able to relax a few minutes before heading back to my gate, where the new departure time was 9:45 p.m. I shrugged and headed back to the Northwest lounge, sat with Tudor (whose Northwest flight to Vancouver was scheduled to leave after midnight), then wandered back to the gate.

I decided to try one more time to get my boarding pass for Friday morning, which would let me get to the hotel as quickly as possible and get an extra 20 or 30 minutes of sleep. As I waited, I heard the agent working out a flight for the passenger in front of me—to SFO via Vegas! I asked if I could do the same and noted that I had been told no such flight was available. the agent said nothing. I thought it might be that the Vegas-SFO flight was delayed, but that wasn’t the case—it was due to depart at about midnight, so I had plenty of time to get there and make that flight.

I was lucky to get on the Vegas flight, since both computers at the gate froze up and the agent couldn’t print me a ticket. However, a ticket was awaiting me in Vegas, where the flight was (of course) delayed from Chicago. I’m sitting in the terminal now, waiting for a flight that is now due to depart at 1:50 a.m. It’ll be 5 a.m. earliest before I walk through my front door.

I should have just stayed in the hotel in Phoenix; I would have gotten home only four hours later.

Who ever said business travel is glamorous?

Posted by Shel in • Cabs • Planes
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

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  1. I guess I was the lucky one in my travels with Shel this week. My flight did indeed leave Minneapolis shortly after midnight (central time) and I got home at about 2 am (west coast time). Shel was still in Vegas apparently when I thought he was sleeping peacefully in Phoenix.
    I had an interesting experience on this flight shortly before we left last night. It makes the comments of bottled water on board in Shel’s earlier blog very pertinent to traveling in the air today.
    The young lady about to take her window seat in my row was the last to board and came down the aisle with a bottle of water in full view in her carry on bag. Shortly before taking off, the flight attendant asked on the PA if anyone had brought any liquids on board. The woman remained silent and did nothing. The man in the middle seat beside me picked up the bottle, handed it to me and told me to put it in the aisle to be picked up. The woman pleaded ignorance of the regulations explaining she had just bought it after coming through security.  I placed the bottle on the floor on the aisle. On the next pass down the aisle, a flight attendant almost stepped over it, paused and picked it up asking whose it was. The man in the middle pointed at the window seat. The flight attendant said nothing more and took the bottle to the galley.

    So what does this tell us about the seriousness with which the airlines and their crews take this issue and the vigilance or lack of it when passengers are boarding? What doe s it tell us about how effectively the security messages are being communicated? And should my traveling neighbor in the middle seat have acted as he did in the absence of the crew’s vigilance? And was he intervening or interfering?

    I am just glad we were not diverted once in the air, if the bottle in question had been discovered after take off. If we had I would have claimed Shel’s sympathy for most sleep lost last night.

    Tudor

    Tudor Williams  on  08/25  at  01:45 PM

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