From Mom: Pleasant (and Not So Pleasant) Airline Memories

I’ve decided to carry on the good/bad theme that Julie and Rob used recently, except that I want to write about pleasant (not so pleasant) airline memories.

One of my pleasant memories would be the time I was returning from an NTI session and got to Dallas early. I discovered that an earlier flight to Austin had just loaded. When I said, “Gee, I wish I could have caught that flight and gotten home sooner”, the gate agent said, “Well, let’s get you on this one”. So we went down the jetway, he knocked on the already closed door, they opened it and let me on, and there was a seat and even a place to put my carry-on.

Another would be the time our flight from Prague to Amsterdam was late and they made everybody else wait while the 10 or 12 of us on the flight to America were escorted off that plane and unto the plane to the US they’d held for us.

And the time British Airlines decided that if Rob had jeans to replace his “cut-offs”, that they could move the four of us up to business class for the flight from London to Dallas. Of course, Bob may consider that an unpleasant memory since it meant I tried to never, ever again sit in coach.

On another overseas flight I was sitting by an older couple who did not speak English. A young woman kept checking on them, and when I asked if she’d like to change seats with me, she said, “Sure, if you don’t mind”. And when I discovered she was in business class, no, I definitely did not mind. One unpleasant part of that trip was the fact that I’d told the airline beforehand that I was diabetic, but really regretted having done so when they brought my diabetic tray and everyone else was having lobster.

Now on to my terrible, horrible, no-good, very unpleasant flight on Tuesday: I arrived at the gate for my 5:35 flight to Chicago about an hour and 45 minutes early, passing Gate 1, where the 3:50 flight to Chicago was to depart. Soon, I began to hear announcements about lightning in Chicago and delays into and out of Chicago and finally an announcement that there’s a “ground stop” or something similar in Chicago, and nothing was going in or out.

At 5:00, they announced that the 5:15 flight to Las Vegas was now departing from Gate 5. “Isn’t that our gate?” Yeah, it was and here came all the people for that flight lining up around us. And then, although there was no announcement, someone came and said, “our flight is now at Gate 1”. So we all trooped down there only to discover that all the passengers from the 3:50 flight were still waiting for their flight – at that gate, and had all the seats.

The 3:50 flight finally left around 5 pm since things were now moving into and out of Chicago. Which was good, because our flight had to come to us from Chicago, which would take about an hour and 15 minutes. While we were waiting, I checked and was reassured that we would get to Chicago by 7:05 (CST) and that my flight to Austin, originally scheduled for 7:30, was now scheduled for 7:50. So “no problem”, they kept saying.

We did finally leave Pittsburgh, later than they’d said, but did get into Chicago at 7:25. The Austin gate was the next gate over and was still showing a 7:30 departure. I rushed over and got in the A group line, although they weren’t loading anyone else.

At 8 pm, there was an announcement that our plane was ready for the Austin flight, but that our pilot was on a flight from Denver, which should arrive at 8:45. A little before 9, they started loading and when we all got on, they told us that our pilot’s plane from Denver had landed and as soon as he could get to our concourse, we’d be ready. He came rushing in, got a large cheer, and we finally left Chicago between 9:20 and 9:30.

It was bumpy all the way home and the seat belt sign stayed on the whole way. The flight attendants did serve snacks and drinks and people would get up and go to the bathroom. About 35 minutes before Austin, the pilot asked the flight attendants to pick up trash, asked us to put tray tables up, stow carry-ons, yada, yada. He asked flight attendants to take their seats and said we were going to go a little east to approach Austin. (The storm he went around dumped 19 inches on Marble Falls in a couple of hours that night.)

Our arrival had been scheduled for 10, but we landed at 11:40, my checked bag was among the last 3 or 4 to get out, and we finally got home and to bed around 1 am. (I had gotten up about 6:30 Texas time that morning, so it was a very, very long day.)