(no subject)
I had the pleasure of taking a business trip to Pensacola this week. Getting there and the work itself went fine.
We get through security at Pensacola with half an hour to spare before our plane starts boarding. As that half hour comes and goes, there's no boarding announcement. Probably because there's no plane there at the gate. Finally they announce that there have been storms in Charlotte, so our plane will be an hour late arriving, which of course means that plane will be an hour late in delivering us back to Charlotte.
When we finally do take off, many of us (myself included) are sweating our connections. At least the gate agent had said that since 9 of us were connecting to Dulles, they'd try to hold that plane. And as we landed in Charlotte I found out that the Dulles flight would be delayed too, giving me time to make the connection. Except...they couldn't find a gate for us. So we sat on the taxiway for 45 minutes, watching a couple dozen planes take off. One of these planes should have been mine. At this point it was maybe 8:30.
Once I got into the airport I checked out my options for getting to Washington. There was a 10:20 flight to Dulles, delayed past midnight...and it was overbooked. There was a flight to National around the same time that was cancelled. There was an 11:00 flight to Baltimore...but cab fare home from BWI would have cost more than a hotel room. So I found a hotel in Charlotte. No complaints about that place...Embassy Suites is awesome and I got a great rate.
My flight this morning was scheduled for 11:50, letting me have breakfast and get some work done before I caught a shuttle back to the airport. I showed up for my flight and boarded on time. We were just about to take off when things started to suck. One of the flight attendants asked if there was a doctor on the plane. Apparently somebody in the very last row passed out. We headed back to the gate, and waited for the paramedics to arrive. They wheeled their special aisle-sized wheelchair all the way back to her and eventually took her off the plane. It was now about 1.
While we refueled, they said that they just needed some paperwork to arrive, and they expected to have it within 5 or 10 minutes. I guess what they really meant was 45 minutes. By the time it did arrive, one of the flight attendants was now over the limit of hours she was allowed to work. So we had to sit and wait for her replacement, who would supposedly be there within 5 or 10 minutes. Needless to say, we waited 45 more minutes for her to show up. At some point during this time I whipped out my cell phone and called up the automated flight status system, putting it on speaker for the amusement of the surrounding passengers:
"US Airways Express flight two...six...two...zero...arrived Washington Dulles at twelve...thirty-seven...PM"
We finally took off around 2:30. We spent three hours in the ground in Charlotte in order to spend less than an hour in the air.
To their credit, they decided not to charge us for soft drinks. Yes, today was the first day that US Airways began charging $2 for a coke or even a water. We all felt we deserved a free drink, especially those of us who would have had them for free anyway had they actually managed to get us home yesterday.
We get through security at Pensacola with half an hour to spare before our plane starts boarding. As that half hour comes and goes, there's no boarding announcement. Probably because there's no plane there at the gate. Finally they announce that there have been storms in Charlotte, so our plane will be an hour late arriving, which of course means that plane will be an hour late in delivering us back to Charlotte.
When we finally do take off, many of us (myself included) are sweating our connections. At least the gate agent had said that since 9 of us were connecting to Dulles, they'd try to hold that plane. And as we landed in Charlotte I found out that the Dulles flight would be delayed too, giving me time to make the connection. Except...they couldn't find a gate for us. So we sat on the taxiway for 45 minutes, watching a couple dozen planes take off. One of these planes should have been mine. At this point it was maybe 8:30.
Once I got into the airport I checked out my options for getting to Washington. There was a 10:20 flight to Dulles, delayed past midnight...and it was overbooked. There was a flight to National around the same time that was cancelled. There was an 11:00 flight to Baltimore...but cab fare home from BWI would have cost more than a hotel room. So I found a hotel in Charlotte. No complaints about that place...Embassy Suites is awesome and I got a great rate.
My flight this morning was scheduled for 11:50, letting me have breakfast and get some work done before I caught a shuttle back to the airport. I showed up for my flight and boarded on time. We were just about to take off when things started to suck. One of the flight attendants asked if there was a doctor on the plane. Apparently somebody in the very last row passed out. We headed back to the gate, and waited for the paramedics to arrive. They wheeled their special aisle-sized wheelchair all the way back to her and eventually took her off the plane. It was now about 1.
While we refueled, they said that they just needed some paperwork to arrive, and they expected to have it within 5 or 10 minutes. I guess what they really meant was 45 minutes. By the time it did arrive, one of the flight attendants was now over the limit of hours she was allowed to work. So we had to sit and wait for her replacement, who would supposedly be there within 5 or 10 minutes. Needless to say, we waited 45 more minutes for her to show up. At some point during this time I whipped out my cell phone and called up the automated flight status system, putting it on speaker for the amusement of the surrounding passengers:
"US Airways Express flight two...six...two...zero...arrived Washington Dulles at twelve...thirty-seven...PM"
We finally took off around 2:30. We spent three hours in the ground in Charlotte in order to spend less than an hour in the air.
To their credit, they decided not to charge us for soft drinks. Yes, today was the first day that US Airways began charging $2 for a coke or even a water. We all felt we deserved a free drink, especially those of us who would have had them for free anyway had they actually managed to get us home yesterday.