Post a Comment On: The Family

[Image] THURSDAY, JULY 19, 7 P.M.

DAYTON -- I have to write about this work-related trip because it is just too bizarre to be true. But, unfortunately, it isn't, as I'm still living it.

I was to do a business trip to Dayton, Ohio, leaving Austin on Sunday and returning on Wednesday night, late., all on United Airlines. I was worried about that return flight, but heh ... it couldn't be that bad.

I left Austin on Sunday on at 8:03 a.m., with a connection in Denver and arrival in Dayton at 2:44 p.m. I was worried about flying out West before going East, but figured at least I wouldn't get snowed in at Denver in July. Right?

The Austin flight was the only one on time. Once I arrived in Denver and went to our gate, I noticed our flight was not listed on the board. Checking ... checking ... checking ... the arriving aircraft was two airports away. We changed gates six times. (No lie, no exaggeration. Except that supposedly there were four changes before I got there, but I'm not counting those.) Once on the plane and seated, only two or so hours behind, they asked for seven volunteers to deplane for a $500 travel voucher, as the plane was overweight. There were already empty seats, yet they were overweight? They got their seven, and then announced they needed two more volunteers, or they would pull 12 bags from the belly of the plane. They needed more fuel to skirt storms on the way. (My colleagues said sun was shining in Dayton.) They got three volunteers.

I got to Dayton only three hours late. I can live with that.

As I readied to depart on Wednesday, I was watching United's iPhone app like a hawk, watching my inbound flights get delayed as storms wracked the Northeast. As I arrived, I look out on the tarmac and there are NO planes anywhere. I wait in the airport for a couple of hours as my flight is already delayed and as I walk to the gate, I see a plane! Unfortunately (now 7 p.m. for my 4:30ish flight) I find out the plane is really the 2:45p flight, combined with a 7p flight, but not to my destination. As I'm talking to the attendant about my soon-to-be-missed connection in Chicago, they cancel my flight altogether. She books me for the first flight out in the morning, at 5:50 a.m. I shoulda known better ... no flight in tonight means no plane to fly out on tomorrow.

I go rebook at my hotel (on my company's dime and not United, as it's weather-related) and set up a morning cab ride to the airport as the shuttle won't start early enough. I set my alarm for 4 a.m. to catch my 4:15 a.m. cab.

One minute after four, my cabbie calls me to say he is waiting downstairs. I rush to dress and go down, throw my stuff in the back and dream of coffee. Because my tickets are in the back, I can't check the United app for my flight. Unbeknownst to me, there is an e-mail in my inbox from about 2 a.m. explaining that my 5:50a flight to Dulles is cancelled and I'm booked for a 4:40 p.m. flight to Denver (again!) for arrival in Austin just before midnight, a full 24-hours after my first ETA. I dread the afternoon flight bump all day. I go back to the Dayton paper, and check United.com every hour for updates. My arriving plane makes it to Chicago, but is already showing an hour-plus delay into Dayton. I can still make my connection. One hour turns into 1.5 hours. Can still make it. I get to the gate for my delayed departure and a plane IS AT THE GATE! I can still make my connection in Denver!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sure how to break this news, so I'm just going to tell it to you straight."
Groan. The captain is out of flight hours and can't fly. The next captain is at least 1.5 hours late on another plane. I will miss my connection in Denver, and there are no more. I will not make it to Austin tonight.

As of this minute (7 p.m. in Dayton, two hours after scheduled departure) I am still booked to Denver tonight, arriving before 10 p.m., with no connection. They will give me a hotel, they say, and fly me to Austin in the morning. They have booked me on a backup flight to Dallas at 9:50 p.m.

Get me the hell out of Dayton, please.

UPDATE FRIDAY, JULY 20, 9:00 A.M.

DENVER -- Well, the DAY > DEN flight took off at 8:30 p.m. Eastern with estimated arrival in Denver at 9 p.m. Mountain. Before I left Dayton, the time of my DEN > AUS flight was delayed until 9:20 something, so there was hope.

The plane from Dayton was a small one that required us to gate-check our bags, so when we landed I was pretty antsy to get my stuff and try to run from B60something to B85, which was a long haul with two flights of stairs and a very crowded terminal. Of course, the gate was changed, and when I did finally find it, I discovered that I missed it by a long shot as it took off around 9 p.m.

So it was to customer service next, where I waited more than an hour to reach an agent. There were only two, but in that hour-plus one agent spent the whole time with another family of five. The whole time. They were at the agent when I got in line, and I was that agent's next customer about an hour and a half later.

Of course, the airline did not have any more reserved rooms, but they gave me a voucher on how to file for reimbursement, and I had to find my own hotel. They booked me on a direct flight to Austin at 10:00 a.m. (I skipped the 5:50 a.m. flight to Houston with a connection to Austin. No way I was getting another connection, or starting that early again since I had been up almost 20 hours already. While in line, I helped a nice lawyer Liz from Cincinnati who was in a cast and couldn't stand.  She had requested a wheelchair twice, but I finally just flagged one down and commandeered it for her. This came in handy later, as she had the hotel she reached save another room for me, and I helped her get us to the shuttle, which was theoretically waiting for us outside.

We reach the hotel shuttle lane about 10:45, and there is no Sleep Inn shuttle. We called after a while and they said it was doing rounds and was on it's way back. It arrived about 11:15, but there were so many people waiting that I was bumped, along with another man in a wheelchair and his buddy. Liz begged her way on the shuttle, as she had a 5 a.m. flight for a job interview in Oregon.

I heard all other hotels were booked and I knew that Liz had not left my name with Sleep Inn, so I called to make sure I had a room. The shuttle finally made it back and midnight for his last run, and we got to the hotel about 12:20 a.m., checked in and to my room about 12:45. Asleep by 12:47. I planned to make the 8 a.m. shuttle to the airport.

I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and checked my phone to find news of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, which happend to be where I was. I couldn't see helicopters outside or anything, but I figured I better take the 7:15 a.m. shuttle and get to the airport.

So that is where I am now, after using a meal voucher from United (thanks for that). It looks like my plane is here, but now they are talking about weight restrictions, so no stand-by passengers will be allowed. If this is anything like Sunday, they may ask for volunteers. Who knows. That turned out to be an earlier flight to Columbus.

UPDATE FRIDAY, JULY 20, 4 P.M.

Well, I've been home for about an hour now, and I'm clean and refreshed. My flight from Denver to Austin was fairly uneventful, and I was happy to use United's last meal voucher at Salt Lick. Too much bread and too little meat, but who's to complain ;-).

In all, it took me over 40 hours from my first scheduled departure in Dayton until we reached the gate in Austin. I can say the folks I worked with at United were nice and truly tried to help me. I do wonder if I should've done more to find a different flight on Thursday to get out of Dayton to expand my options, but I know that morning there couldn't have been many options with so many cancelled flights.