My travel adventures to Seattle continue. Last time I flew back from Seattle, I ended up in Tulsa and opted to drive home from there. This trip, weather again played a factor, only this time my departure was delayed. And delayed. And delayed some more.

In fact, the flight was ultimately cancelled.

Fortunately, Seattle to Dallas is a fairly regular run for American Airlines, so even though the 9:50am departure I was supposed to be on had issues, there were other flights at 11:10, 1:30, 2:30, and so on that I could get on. It wasn't such a good thing for some of the other passengers on the flight.

Like the newlyweds who were trying to get to Cancun for their honeymoon, and only had an hour and a half to change flights in Dallas. Or the retired coulple also heading to Cancun on the same flight. Or the gentleman heading to Panama City with only an hour to change planes to catch the last flight of the day out of DFW to Panama. Or the hundreds of others I didn't overhear while waiting in line.

Because as soon as I got to the gate to check in 30 minutes before departure, I saw that American moved us to a different gate and had a delay notification that the flight wouldn't depart until 12:30. While standing in line waiting to see what my options were, the delay was updated to note that the flight wouldn't leave until 3:30. And my wife texted me about the delays before I saw them posted at the gate.

Normally, I wouldn't get too uptight about delays, etc., because I am just going to Dallas and not connecting anywhere else. But as soon as the gate agent informed us that we would all have to go to the baggage carousel to pick up our checked luggage and return to the ticketing counter to recheck, I knew I was in for a long day. As did all the other passengers waiting in line. Then they announced that those who were going to Cancun had their luggage already transferred to the next flight to Dallas (the 11:50 flight) and they were trying to get those passengers moved to that flight to try and make sure they got the connecting flight to Mexico. As I wasn't in that group, I have no idea if they made the connecting flight or not. I suspect not.

A few minutes later, the gate agent announced that all passengers just going to DFW and not connecting elsewhere had their luggage transferred to the 11:50 flight, so even if we weren't on that flight, our luggage would be, and we could pick it up when we finally arrived.

It was about this time that I finally got up to the gate agent and got to discuss my options. They put me on standby for the 11:30 flight, but actually checked me into a window seat on the 1:30 flight, at my request. Good enough for me, I went over to the gate where the 11:50 flight was queuing, and waited for them to not get me on the standby list. And they didn't. No big, as I wasn't expecting it.

So when they finally started preparing for the 1:30 flight, the new gate agents started asking for volunteers to give up their seats on that flight to bump back to the next flight so they could get as many of the stranded passengers on as possible. It was about this time that the original flight scheduled for 9:50 was jsut cancelled, so all passengers had to get booked on other flights. American offered a $300 flight voucher to anyone who was willing to bump back to the next flight. I actually considered this, but given the way the day had gone, and since the actual plane that was to be used for the 1:30 flight was actually at the gate getting ready for the flight (which had not happened for many other flights already), I opted not to take the voucher, and ended up taking my bulkhead seat 7A for the 4-hour flight back to Dallas.

We finally took off when I should have been landing. But we made it.

I'm back in Seattle in two weeks. I can't wait to see what the return flight holds for me on the next trip...

Labels: frustrations