My airline adventure
Have you ever seen Terminal, with Tom Hanks? If not, check it out. I thought it was pretty good and a couple days ago, I lived it out for one night. My little adventure started on Thursday afternoon.
5:25 pm (central)- After getting to the Bloomington (IL) airport and saying my goodbyes, I get to the gate to find out my Airtran flight has been delayed from 5:45 to 6:25. Not good because I only had a 1 hour layover.
6:20 - As we back away from the gate, the pilot tells us we're scheduled to arrive in Atlanta at 9:05. My connecting flight is scheduled to leave at 9:15. Uh-oh. One of the flight attendants tells the lady next to me who's also headed to Tampa that they'll probably hold the plane since there's a lot of us on the flight on our way to Tampa. Feeling better.
9:00 (eastern) - Touchdown. As we taxi on the runway, one of the flight attendants makes a bunch of announcements about connecting flights. For those of us headed to Tampa, there is another Airtran flight heading to Tampa at 10:40. If we miss our scheduled flight, she says they can hopefully put us on that flight.
9:12 - Our plane does a U-turn between two terminals. Are you kidding me?!?!?!
9:18 - We finally arrive at Gate C2. Our flight leaves from D4. Must hurry!!
9:30 - Fast walking/jogging up to gate D4 with about 10 others, I see a plane there. Sweet!!! We made it! ..... The plane is for the next flight. Thanks for holding the flight for us, Airtran.
9:40 - An angry mob begins to form around the counter at the gate, which I stay out of. The last scheduled flight to Tampa is booked full and the next one doesn't leave til 8:05 the next morning. As people get more upset, they begin to lie saying they were "guaranteed" a seat for that flight. What a bunch of bull. No one ever said that. It's a fairly ugly picture of selfish human nature.
9:55 - After waiting and listening to those before me complain, lie, yell at the clerk and yell at their kids just because they've been a little inconvenienced, I make my way to the front of the line. The clerk (whose name I can't remember) has been incredible! It would have been so easy for her to just go off on some of these people, but she didn't. Some may chalk that up to professional courtesy, but I was impressed with her gentleness and humility. After telling her what a good job she was doing, she puts me on stand-by for the last flight (just in case) and gives me my seat for the morning flight. With it comes $25 off my next travel purchase and a $10 voucher for some food.
11:20 - After getting to the gate of the last flight to Tampa, using my voucher on some Popeye's chicken (which was pretty good food) and watching them close the gate door, it's now official. I will be spending the night in the Atlanta airport.
I'll stop this "action-packed" story here for now and finish it off tomorrow. I'm sure you'll look forward to it just like you would the next episode of Lost.
5:25 pm (central)- After getting to the Bloomington (IL) airport and saying my goodbyes, I get to the gate to find out my Airtran flight has been delayed from 5:45 to 6:25. Not good because I only had a 1 hour layover.
6:20 - As we back away from the gate, the pilot tells us we're scheduled to arrive in Atlanta at 9:05. My connecting flight is scheduled to leave at 9:15. Uh-oh. One of the flight attendants tells the lady next to me who's also headed to Tampa that they'll probably hold the plane since there's a lot of us on the flight on our way to Tampa. Feeling better.
9:00 (eastern) - Touchdown. As we taxi on the runway, one of the flight attendants makes a bunch of announcements about connecting flights. For those of us headed to Tampa, there is another Airtran flight heading to Tampa at 10:40. If we miss our scheduled flight, she says they can hopefully put us on that flight.
9:12 - Our plane does a U-turn between two terminals. Are you kidding me?!?!?!
9:18 - We finally arrive at Gate C2. Our flight leaves from D4. Must hurry!!
9:30 - Fast walking/jogging up to gate D4 with about 10 others, I see a plane there. Sweet!!! We made it! ..... The plane is for the next flight. Thanks for holding the flight for us, Airtran.
9:40 - An angry mob begins to form around the counter at the gate, which I stay out of. The last scheduled flight to Tampa is booked full and the next one doesn't leave til 8:05 the next morning. As people get more upset, they begin to lie saying they were "guaranteed" a seat for that flight. What a bunch of bull. No one ever said that. It's a fairly ugly picture of selfish human nature.
9:55 - After waiting and listening to those before me complain, lie, yell at the clerk and yell at their kids just because they've been a little inconvenienced, I make my way to the front of the line. The clerk (whose name I can't remember) has been incredible! It would have been so easy for her to just go off on some of these people, but she didn't. Some may chalk that up to professional courtesy, but I was impressed with her gentleness and humility. After telling her what a good job she was doing, she puts me on stand-by for the last flight (just in case) and gives me my seat for the morning flight. With it comes $25 off my next travel purchase and a $10 voucher for some food.
11:20 - After getting to the gate of the last flight to Tampa, using my voucher on some Popeye's chicken (which was pretty good food) and watching them close the gate door, it's now official. I will be spending the night in the Atlanta airport.
I'll stop this "action-packed" story here for now and finish it off tomorrow. I'm sure you'll look forward to it just like you would the next episode of Lost.
posted by John V at 10:58 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like an exciting adventure. No issues of the sort to and from LA. No, no surfing for me; the water was freezing! But I went down to Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach, hung around Westwood for a while and ate dinner at Rodeo Drive - where I can't afford to even walk on the sidewalks. The trip was great, except for the losses. And they both should have been wins. Watching this WCWS is killing me because I know we should have been there!! Can't wait to hear the rest of your story!
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