After spending a fabulous week in J-ville, FL, the night before we were to return to Phoenix I started getting a little nervous. It took me a minute to figure out why, but upon realizing there was a flight and a connecting flight involved, I knew that chances were pretty good something was going to go screwy. Especially after our initial flight, I had a reason to be worried that something might go awry. Let's just say that Delta Airlines didn't disappoint with the mayhem.
It was a balmy 88 degrees with about 92% humidity that fateful afternoon/evening we headed to the J-ville airport. You could sift the air through your teeth, it was brutal. Our flight was due to leave at about 7:25 J-ville time, and things were already looking sketchy. An attempt to do early check in online a few hours earlier proved to be quite the ordeal. After a few failed attempts at checking in, I finally had to call Delta to figure out what was going on as it was telling me we were ineligible to check in. As it turns out after talking to Doris, magically on top of our already scheduled connecting flight in Atlanta, they also had us somehow connecting in Philadelphia. Great, a phantom flight! Delta you continue to impress. After a few minutes, Doris had everything straightened out and thankfully we still had our original itinerary. Check in complete, maybe we had the worst of it behind us for this trip. Yeah, right...
After a successful check-in at the airport counter, we headed towards the security gate and stopped briefly so my niece, Samantha, could get some souvenirs to take back with her. I thought I'd take a quick glance at the flight monitors to see how we were doing. Oh look at that, the flight's already been pushed back to 8 p.m.! What a surprise! I just got in the building, can't you let the suspense build up a little bit first before making everything haywire? Well, now we at least had time to eat some food. The highlight of the evening it would be.
After a quick dinner, I decided to go up to the gate desk to see how we were looking. Oh no, that line is way too long for things to be ok. I asked the gentleman standing in front of me what the prognosis was. He quickly replied in a sweet tone of voice, "We're not leaving til' 8:30 now." Instantly, a wave of semi-nausea ran over me. Our new arrival time was 9:41 ATL time, our departure time to PHX was 9:40. This was not going to be good. I thought to myself, 'What is wrong with THIS flight?'
No sooner did I ask myself that, then the attendant came over the loud speaker explaining how it was delayed due to the plane being "too heavy" before takeoff and how they had to "de-fuel" the plane to readjust the weight. This apparently takes an hour or so to do. De-fuel a plane? Are you kidding me?! I can hear that announcement happening on that plane now, "Uh yeah, folks this is the captain speaking. It turns out we're a tad too heavy fully loaded. We can't take any people or luggage off this flight, so what we're going to do is remove the fuel from the plane and put a little less back into it. Don't worry, we will have PLENTY of fuel!" This is very similar in my opinion to someone telling me that maintenance is on board the plane fixing an issue. It doesn't make you rest easy. Less fuel than intended? Are we going to make it? Delta, you are amazing! You know how to make everyone feel at peace!
It becomes clear quickly that they're telling people they won't make their connecting flights and making people hotel reservations. This line is going nowhere fast. Obviously, no one in the line is in a good mood, including myself. I've never been stuck like this before, it looks like my streak was coming to an end. Meanwhile, there's 1 Delta attendant at the next gate over looking for different airlines to get people out on time and hopefully still catch the connecting flight. She's asking people if they are flying to certain cities to come see her at that desk, everyone else just stay in line. Funny, no one's going over to see you, how about taking some of the load off of this line? No? Ok, just checking. Eventually she wanders back over to our terminal, as no one is taking what she has to offer. Thirty minutes later, it's my turn at the gate. As soon as I get up to the front, another attendant comes out of nowhere and tells me to meet her over at the other gate the other attendant was just at. Perfect! This circus just keeps getting better by the minute. Meanwhile I'm telling my traveling companions that we're probably staying the night either here or in Atlanta and to get the proper people notified.
The attendant promptly tells me it's not looking good. She really knew how to talk straight with me. Her final suggestion was to go to Atlanta and see somehow if we could make our connecting flight, as that flight was a little delayed leaving its destination. It still showed leaving on time at 9:40, but nevertheless it's worth a shot! If not, we could see some of the finest lodging Atlanta had to offer. All I had to do was get their "I'm stuck here and don't have my luggage" kit when we got there, and I would have necessary toiletries to get me through the night and a fresh t-shirt. Awesome, I hope they have a XXL kit. Maybe the shirt says "I got stuck in Atlanta and all I got was this stupid t-shirt." I'd go for that. She talks me into going to Atlanta, and we're all set. After doing a "quick turnaround", we are all on board from the late arriving plane and ready to take off. I stand up to get something and hear 2 attendants behind me attempting to do something they are obviously struggling with. I turn around and notice they are trying to put a ceiling panel back into place. Great, the roof is falling off inside the plane. Delta, perhaps it's time to update your fleet a bit? Oh well, it's just a ceiling panel. The attendant promptly asks me if I could help them out as they are both about 5'0" on a good day, and well, I have a little height to lend to the cause. "Sure," I said, "I'll put the roof back together for you." Let's roll!
So we take off at exactly 8:30, flight's still scheduled for 9:40. Flight's scheduled to be an hour and ten minutes. The captain tells us we have a 50 minute flight ahead of us, which gives us just a small glimmer of hope. This will be nothing short of a miracle if we make it. Now we will be landing at approximately 9:20 at gate B4. Luckily, we were moved from row 40 on the plane to row 16 due to all of the people cancelling and just trying again tomorrow in J-ville. We all know how fun it is de-boarding a plane. It can take 10-15 minutes just to get off of the dang thing. We get off the plane into the terminal at approximately 9:30, and quickly discover our departing gate is B34. B4 to B34, we're not out of the woods yet. Remember previously what I said about Atlanta being the busiest airport in the world? Even at 9:30 at night that theory holds up. We had to make like a bakery truck and haul buns down to B34 as the attendant at B4 was screaming at us telling us to hustle, they were waiting for us at B34. Do you know how hard it is to run with your shorts falling off your waist? I wasn't fully prepared to be running, as I had not put a belt on. This did not help any.
About 3/4 of the way to B34, we come upon a gentleman dressed in a captain's uniform. He was at approximately B26 and he yelled out to us, "Are you going to Phoenix?!" To which we promptly replied, "HOPEFULLY!" He retorted back with, "Well they're not going anywhere without me, so you're ok." We instantly slowed down just a bit to a very brisk walk. As we got within eyesight of B34, the attendant was out in the hallway screaming at us like a drill sergeant, "GO GO GO, come on Phoenix!" I instantly thought to myself, 'Why are they trying so urgently to get us on the plane when Captain Fantastic back there is either getting a biscuit to eat, going to the bathroom, or getting a magazine for the long flight to Phoenix?' Amazingly enough we were walking onto the plane at 10:39. They even waited an extra 5 minutes for what looked to be other passengers, but I think the real story was Captain Fantastic doing God knows what in the terminal. They promptly closed the door after the 5 minutes and we were backing out. I was only half paying attention but I never did see the Captain come back on board. I'm half convinced that guy was just some crazy old man that dresses up in a captain's costume and walks around giving false hope to passengers in a frenzy. Nicely done, sir.
We had done it! The impossible! We were on the way to Phoenix! Man what a relief, and man was I warm from running through the halls and jumping onto a stuffed plane. Let me just reach up and get that air vent on me... That's weird, there's no air vent? First time ever I've been on a plane with no personal air vent. Maybe there was some technological advance out there that made it possible to not have the personal vents, I could feel the air blowing, it was doing ok. No sooner do I think this to myself then I hear a guy 2 rows in front of me asking where the vent is because he's warm. The flight attendant promptly responds to him "Yes sir, this plane was built BEFORE the invention of the personal air vents, I'm sorry about that." Holy cow, are you serious?! We are on a dinosaur plane, maybe this plane is grandfathered in and they will let us smoke on it, because I might need a cigarette to get us through this flight. Once again Delta, you have put me at ease knowing the metal can I'm flying on is as safe as a newborn in his mother's arms. NOT... A 4 hour plane ride in a plane that was built BEFORE they made personal air vents. How many of those have you been on? Unreal Delta...
Safe to say we made it back to Phoenix at about 10:45 p.m. The streak is still intact, and I didn't have to spend the night in Atlanta. Maybe next time... Delta sent me an apology letter earlier this week for all of the mishaps that went on that glorious evening. They even were generous enough to give me an extra 1,000 frequent flyer miles for the inconvenience. Thanks Delta! Not quite sure I want to be using what I have now dubbed the "Dinosaur Airline". But we'll see, who knows what the future holds. Riding on a plane that was invented before air vents, watching them try to fix another plane for 2 hours with no luck, and riding on one that the ceiling panels were falling off doesn't make me feel like jumping right back on the next flight. Yay flying!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Thank You For Flying With Us...
Alright, look. I don't really know where to start here, but somehow I will get this out. I recently just returned from a fabulous vacation in the lovely city of Jacksonville, FL and had a wonderful time. Visiting some family and basking in the Florida sun (and rain) was one of the best vacations I've had in a while. Possibly ever if you count a vacation as only being when you actually go away from where you live for an extended amount of time. The action fired up as soon as we arrived and didn't let up until the minute I returned to Phoenix. Let me just list a couple of the events and you will understand: NASCAR race in Daytona, fishing for anything that would eat a shrimp in the ocean (sharks), eating seafood by the pound, swimming in the immaculate Atlantic Ocean, watching fireworks in the channel by St. Augustine on a boat... You get where I'm going here, it was nuts. I barely remember sleeping there was so much going on. Only 2 things happened that brought this trip to its knees: the flight to Jacksonville, and the return flight home to Phoenix.
Let's start with the flight to Jacksonville, it's amazing how 1 airline practically intentionally tries to ruin your trip singlehandedly. So we depart at 6:05 a.m. which means we arrive at Sky Harbor at approximately 4:30 a.m. You feel like you walk into the set of a zombie movie when entering this airport at this hour. I'm pretty sure no one's really awake there, they are just going through the motions. Surprisingly doing the early check-in has benefited us and we are through security with bags checked by 4:45 and are waiting for the flight which is ON TIME. Score, who said this trip was going to be full of peril? Nothing like catching the first flight of the day out of this frying pan.
So we're all standing around waiting for the first set of the "elite" passengers to board when I glance over and see a woman with a small baby walking my way. She's on her own this flight, and has that smile on her face like "my baby is the coolest thing since sliced bread, why don't you all look at him and comment on how precious he is". This did not bother me because I'm sure some day I will have a kid and will want the whole world to see him/her. So she decides to walk over to within about 5 feet of me and waits to board, no big deal... I glance back over one more time as she makes some googly talk to the baby, mainly because I was laughing at her talk when I was blind sided by the mother of all awkwardness. The broad was breast feeding like she was the only one in the airport. Now ladies, breast feeding is no doubt a very necessary/critical whatever you want to call it way of feeding a newborn child hands down. But have you no shame woman?! If you want to make a dude feel awkward in a public scenario, start breast feeding your kid with no cover. Sure there's the perverts that probably think it's awesome, but even they have to ask themselves "Is this right?" Are you trying to attract the perverts? Do you not realize what you're doing here? Cover it up! I can't think of anything close that compares with what I could do that would be in parallel with this except throwing my pants down in the corner of the terminal and going #1. Who wants to see that? Yeah I know it's a boob, but we don't have to be dirtbags everywhere we go, right? Ladies, don't expose yourself to the filth of the world like that!
It gets worse, guess who sits down in the same row as me on the opposite side of the aisle. You guessed it. My first thought was, "well at least she got the feeding out of the way before she boarded". Nope, she wasn't even close to done. She had a 3 hour flight and she was planning on using ALL of the flight time wisely. As soon as the plane got to elevation and the captain made the electronics are OK announcement, she was back at it before I could plug my headphones into my phone to listen to the Avett Brothers. It took every ounce of me to not say "COME ON LADY!" The guy next to her was really enjoying it though and no he wasn't traveling with her. I just closed my eyes and tried to sleep like a sardine sleeps in a sardine can for the rest of the flight. I'm sure you can imagine me sitting in coach on a 757 Boeing. It's not the most normal sight you've ever seen. Only 3 hours and I was in Atlanta, 3/4 of the way to vacation!
I'm not sure that everyone knows this, but I read a fun little tidbit that said that the Atlanta airport (Hartsfield-Jackson International) is the busiest airport in the world. Don't ask me why, but upon arriving I would not disagree. There's 5 terminals and an underground tram/walkway that takes you to each different terminal. At least it was easy to lose the breast feeder... We arrived at terminal C and luckily had to work our way up to terminal B. A short 5 minute walk, plenty of time to spare. Upon arriving to our gate in the B terminal, we realize we have plenty of time as they are just now unloading passengers off of the arriving flight from La Guardia that will take us to JAX. Thank goodness, everyone had time to go pee. The first thing the gate attendant says over the intercom is "We are unloading the passengers now, and the mechanical staff is on board trying to diagnose an issue, we should be taking off approximately 30 minutes after our scheduled takeoff." Ok, if you tell me that mechanics are investigating an issue on a plane I'm about to get on, you're not doing me any favors. First of all, you don't want to tell them to hurry up because that would be bad. Secondly, I do not want to watch a bunch of wrench monkeys work on my plane and keep me in the busiest airport in the world any longer than need be. This is where you realize the mechanics might have the crappiest job in the airport. You can't win for losing. Oh well, at least I had a little time to charge up my now nearly dead phone. Little did I know my phone would be fully charged before we left that god forsaken airport.
An hour and a half AFTER we were supposed to take off, amazingly the plane's pilot comes out and decides to give us his 5 cents worth. He begins explaining how there's an air control module that shifts oxygen from one side of the plane to the other in an emergency situation and blah blah blah.. We get the point man, we want that fixed before it takes off. Low and behold, they've already replaced the part and it's still not functioning properly. This does not bode well. We should have been in JAX by now feeding our faces with shrimp and scallops. He thanks us for being patient, as always like we have a choice, and goes back to the plane. The anxious crowd continued on watching the wrench monkeys stare at the under belly of the plane pointing and gawking surely just putting on a show for us passengers at this point. They know they're not fixing this plane soon. Come on, man!
About 40 minutes later, the gate attendant tells us they are fairly certain this plane isn't going anywhere and they have started looking for a different plane for us to take to JAX. There's a novel concept, odds are in our favor as the ATL is one of Delta's main hubs. Just pull another one out of the hangar and let's rock! Easier said than done, I know. All of a sudden it was like a stampede of water buffalo running from a pride of lions from gate B01 to B24. The attendant tells us they have found a plane and we'll be boarding at that gate heading to JAX. Thank you, 3 hours later... So we get to B24 and it's not an "end of the terminal" gate, just one of your standard side pocket gates for lack of a better term. Talk about shoving 10 lbs. of fat into a 5 lb. bag. Now 300 people are swarmed around this gate like a lynch mob. Our new lovely gate attendant tells us that we will be boarding shortly as soon as the crew gets to the new plane and does their pre-flight checks. Let's do this! About 30 minutes later, the gate attendant tells us they've lost the crew and are "looking for them". How the @&%* does this happen?! They were on a broken plane sitting there all by themselves. Did they sneak out the back door on the dining truck? That's what I would have done...
Ten minutes later, the crew comes walking up and it appeared as if the crowd was ready to stone them all. The captain decides to get on the intercom for one last brief update. "Yeah ladies and gentlemen, sorry about that but they decided not to inform the crew that we were switching planes so we've been sitting on the broken plane for the last half hour wondering what's been going on. Sorry about that!" Hey nice job Delta! Talk about putting the cart before the horse, they almost got a crew killed that afternoon. Shortly after that we boarded and were in the air arriving in JAX at 5:30 as opposed to 2:30 as scheduled.
And this was just the flight TO the lovely town of Jacksonville. More to come in tomorrow's blog on the return nightmare flight home...
Let's start with the flight to Jacksonville, it's amazing how 1 airline practically intentionally tries to ruin your trip singlehandedly. So we depart at 6:05 a.m. which means we arrive at Sky Harbor at approximately 4:30 a.m. You feel like you walk into the set of a zombie movie when entering this airport at this hour. I'm pretty sure no one's really awake there, they are just going through the motions. Surprisingly doing the early check-in has benefited us and we are through security with bags checked by 4:45 and are waiting for the flight which is ON TIME. Score, who said this trip was going to be full of peril? Nothing like catching the first flight of the day out of this frying pan.
So we're all standing around waiting for the first set of the "elite" passengers to board when I glance over and see a woman with a small baby walking my way. She's on her own this flight, and has that smile on her face like "my baby is the coolest thing since sliced bread, why don't you all look at him and comment on how precious he is". This did not bother me because I'm sure some day I will have a kid and will want the whole world to see him/her. So she decides to walk over to within about 5 feet of me and waits to board, no big deal... I glance back over one more time as she makes some googly talk to the baby, mainly because I was laughing at her talk when I was blind sided by the mother of all awkwardness. The broad was breast feeding like she was the only one in the airport. Now ladies, breast feeding is no doubt a very necessary/critical whatever you want to call it way of feeding a newborn child hands down. But have you no shame woman?! If you want to make a dude feel awkward in a public scenario, start breast feeding your kid with no cover. Sure there's the perverts that probably think it's awesome, but even they have to ask themselves "Is this right?" Are you trying to attract the perverts? Do you not realize what you're doing here? Cover it up! I can't think of anything close that compares with what I could do that would be in parallel with this except throwing my pants down in the corner of the terminal and going #1. Who wants to see that? Yeah I know it's a boob, but we don't have to be dirtbags everywhere we go, right? Ladies, don't expose yourself to the filth of the world like that!
It gets worse, guess who sits down in the same row as me on the opposite side of the aisle. You guessed it. My first thought was, "well at least she got the feeding out of the way before she boarded". Nope, she wasn't even close to done. She had a 3 hour flight and she was planning on using ALL of the flight time wisely. As soon as the plane got to elevation and the captain made the electronics are OK announcement, she was back at it before I could plug my headphones into my phone to listen to the Avett Brothers. It took every ounce of me to not say "COME ON LADY!" The guy next to her was really enjoying it though and no he wasn't traveling with her. I just closed my eyes and tried to sleep like a sardine sleeps in a sardine can for the rest of the flight. I'm sure you can imagine me sitting in coach on a 757 Boeing. It's not the most normal sight you've ever seen. Only 3 hours and I was in Atlanta, 3/4 of the way to vacation!
I'm not sure that everyone knows this, but I read a fun little tidbit that said that the Atlanta airport (Hartsfield-Jackson International) is the busiest airport in the world. Don't ask me why, but upon arriving I would not disagree. There's 5 terminals and an underground tram/walkway that takes you to each different terminal. At least it was easy to lose the breast feeder... We arrived at terminal C and luckily had to work our way up to terminal B. A short 5 minute walk, plenty of time to spare. Upon arriving to our gate in the B terminal, we realize we have plenty of time as they are just now unloading passengers off of the arriving flight from La Guardia that will take us to JAX. Thank goodness, everyone had time to go pee. The first thing the gate attendant says over the intercom is "We are unloading the passengers now, and the mechanical staff is on board trying to diagnose an issue, we should be taking off approximately 30 minutes after our scheduled takeoff." Ok, if you tell me that mechanics are investigating an issue on a plane I'm about to get on, you're not doing me any favors. First of all, you don't want to tell them to hurry up because that would be bad. Secondly, I do not want to watch a bunch of wrench monkeys work on my plane and keep me in the busiest airport in the world any longer than need be. This is where you realize the mechanics might have the crappiest job in the airport. You can't win for losing. Oh well, at least I had a little time to charge up my now nearly dead phone. Little did I know my phone would be fully charged before we left that god forsaken airport.
An hour and a half AFTER we were supposed to take off, amazingly the plane's pilot comes out and decides to give us his 5 cents worth. He begins explaining how there's an air control module that shifts oxygen from one side of the plane to the other in an emergency situation and blah blah blah.. We get the point man, we want that fixed before it takes off. Low and behold, they've already replaced the part and it's still not functioning properly. This does not bode well. We should have been in JAX by now feeding our faces with shrimp and scallops. He thanks us for being patient, as always like we have a choice, and goes back to the plane. The anxious crowd continued on watching the wrench monkeys stare at the under belly of the plane pointing and gawking surely just putting on a show for us passengers at this point. They know they're not fixing this plane soon. Come on, man!
About 40 minutes later, the gate attendant tells us they are fairly certain this plane isn't going anywhere and they have started looking for a different plane for us to take to JAX. There's a novel concept, odds are in our favor as the ATL is one of Delta's main hubs. Just pull another one out of the hangar and let's rock! Easier said than done, I know. All of a sudden it was like a stampede of water buffalo running from a pride of lions from gate B01 to B24. The attendant tells us they have found a plane and we'll be boarding at that gate heading to JAX. Thank you, 3 hours later... So we get to B24 and it's not an "end of the terminal" gate, just one of your standard side pocket gates for lack of a better term. Talk about shoving 10 lbs. of fat into a 5 lb. bag. Now 300 people are swarmed around this gate like a lynch mob. Our new lovely gate attendant tells us that we will be boarding shortly as soon as the crew gets to the new plane and does their pre-flight checks. Let's do this! About 30 minutes later, the gate attendant tells us they've lost the crew and are "looking for them". How the @&%* does this happen?! They were on a broken plane sitting there all by themselves. Did they sneak out the back door on the dining truck? That's what I would have done...
Ten minutes later, the crew comes walking up and it appeared as if the crowd was ready to stone them all. The captain decides to get on the intercom for one last brief update. "Yeah ladies and gentlemen, sorry about that but they decided not to inform the crew that we were switching planes so we've been sitting on the broken plane for the last half hour wondering what's been going on. Sorry about that!" Hey nice job Delta! Talk about putting the cart before the horse, they almost got a crew killed that afternoon. Shortly after that we boarded and were in the air arriving in JAX at 5:30 as opposed to 2:30 as scheduled.
And this was just the flight TO the lovely town of Jacksonville. More to come in tomorrow's blog on the return nightmare flight home...
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