33,000 Feet in the Air
Next time we drive…
Our flight home from the northwest started very early Monday morning or very late Sunday night, east coast time. We went to bed at the Portland Airport Hampton Inn at about 7 PM on Sunday night with a 2:00 AM Monday wake-up call because we had a 5:00 AM departure time on an American Airlines 737-800. We woke up on our own at about 1:30 and just decided to get the trip started.
We got to the airport at around 2:00 and it was a ghost town. Fortunately the Hampton Inn Desk Clerk warned us it would be that way. He told us the gate agents wouldn’t even open up until 3:00 AM and TSA wouldn’t start up until 4:00, so we found a couple of seats and got comfortable.
At 3:00 we got in line to check our bags. When that was done the agent told us that TSA didn’t start until 4:00 on our departure concourse, but on D & E they had 24 hour service so we could go though security there and just walk back to our gate on C concourse. So that’s what we did and then we found a couple of seats and got comfortable.
Boarding the plane went smoothly, but after we backed away from the gate and got on a taxiway, we came to a stop. The pilot came on the PA and said something about a center fuel pump and getting a technician to maybe cycle a circuit breaker. So they found us a different gate to park at while maintenance was called to trouble shoot the problem. Two hours later we left our plane and walked to the neighboring gate to begin the boarding process all over again. We rolled back from our second gate in our second plane 3 hours past our scheduled time. I wonder if American could still count this flight as being on time since we did in fact roll from our original gate at the correct time…
Those 3 extra hours in Portland greatly outstripped our 1-1/2 hour layover in Dallas. Once the airline’s app on my phone knew we were not going to make our Dallas to Augusta flight it offered up several options for other flights. Unfortunately they were all listed as for the next day, Tuesday. Turns out there is only one direct flight between DFW and AGS per day, so I picked that one rather than and earlier flight that stopped in Charlotte where we’d change planes to fly to Augusta.
On arrival at Dallas we sought out a customer service person to see about a voucher for a couple meals and a hotel room. (I’ll skip the whole finding the customer service counter fiasco in an unfamiliar airport thing.) The person we did find was very helpful and said she could get us home today, but we would have to go to Charlotte first. The CLT flight was going to be first class (like we paid for), but the AGS trip would be in coach. She couldn’t get us seated next to each other on either flight either, but we figured during boarding we could work a swap with someone. We were ready to be home, so we said we’d take it.
When we got to the gate for the Dallas to Charlotte, the departure time was pushed out a couple hours. While annoying, it wasn’t as bad as the Portland to Dallas delay. We had a long layover in CLT, so the delayed DFW departure just shifted the layover to Dallas. When we boarded our plane in DFW, Donna asked the fellow on her aisle seat if he would swap for an aisle seat two rows back so we could sit together, he agreed.
When we got to Charlotte, the sun was going down on Monday. We had enough time to use the rest rooms and walk slowly to the gate. The flight to Augusta was scheduled to board at 10:00 PM, which was 24 hours since we had woke up in Portland. I was in row 9 at a window seat next to a blind guy I had to crawl over to get in, because he had his headphones on and ignored my tapping on his shoulder. Donna was in row 7 just in front of a noisy, anxious kid. When they closed the aircraft door, Donna could see that the last row of first class was empty, so she called over the flight attendant and asked to get us moved. At first, she didn’t want to do it, but when Donna told her we paid for first class tickets for the whole journey and it was the airline’s fault we were inconvenienced, she relented. So I crawled back over my blind guy and Donna squeezed by her seat neighbor and we settled into some bigger seats right next to each other.
The topper on the travel day was of course our luggage was not on the carousel at AGS. The “Track Your Baggage” section of the American Airlines app, told me that one of the bags was in Charlotte and the other was still in Dallas. The friendly baggage guy filled out the forms on the computer and told us that more than likely we would get our bags on Tuesday. A quick check of the time showed that what he meant to say was later that day, as it was already 12:15 AM on Tuesday. We walked through the nearly deserted airport parking lot to get in the Mini for the drive home. It passed through the 33,000 mile mark somewhere on the trip.
Twenty-eight hours after we woke up in a Portland, Oregon hotel room, we climbed into our own bed in Aiken, South Carolina.
About 10 hours later the two suitcases were delivered to our door. Looking at the airport stickers on the luggage, it seems like the big bag made a quick trip to Las Vegas before coming home. I’d ask what the deal was, but you know what they say – What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
