Travel fun...not
Oct. 26th, 2004 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nlbarberI set off from Atlanta on a flight that left about 1 PM, headed to Tucson via DFW. It was the DFW part that made things interesting. Rain moved in while we were in the air, and we landed 30 minutes late. Then there was the long taxi at DFW, and a slow de-planing as I was in the last row (giving me the lovely treat of sitting in front of the bathroom door, where the people in line loom and lean over your seat). Did the O.J. dash through Terminal E to my gate, arriving there 5 minutes before scheduled departure (3:30 CDT) to find no activity--the plane, a regional jet, is there, but the crew is not.
So, we wait there for maybe 30 minutes until we get a crew and they start their preflight. We load, maybe 20 people in a 50-passenger jet, and wait. This time my seat is across from the bathroom door--gee, I get to hear and smell all. The very friendly pilot tells us (after 15 minutes or so of waiting) that the gate agent asked if he would wait for a flight that has 15 people for our flight on it, and as the outbound traffic is all stacked up anyway, he agrees. But that plan is abandoned when that plane gets put in a holding pattern, and we taxi out to wait in line for the one west-bound route that's clear of storms. Oh, I did manage to move away from the bathroom when it turned out that the plane would only be half-full.
All in all, we left 2 hours late. During that sojourn in Dallas, my suitcase was apparently put out in the rain, and turned to make sure that all sides got wet--luckily, stuff inside was just slightly dampish. And the suitcase itself has nicely dried out overnight in the desert air.
I'm hoping the week improves from here...
So, we wait there for maybe 30 minutes until we get a crew and they start their preflight. We load, maybe 20 people in a 50-passenger jet, and wait. This time my seat is across from the bathroom door--gee, I get to hear and smell all. The very friendly pilot tells us (after 15 minutes or so of waiting) that the gate agent asked if he would wait for a flight that has 15 people for our flight on it, and as the outbound traffic is all stacked up anyway, he agrees. But that plan is abandoned when that plane gets put in a holding pattern, and we taxi out to wait in line for the one west-bound route that's clear of storms. Oh, I did manage to move away from the bathroom when it turned out that the plane would only be half-full.
All in all, we left 2 hours late. During that sojourn in Dallas, my suitcase was apparently put out in the rain, and turned to make sure that all sides got wet--luckily, stuff inside was just slightly dampish. And the suitcase itself has nicely dried out overnight in the desert air.
I'm hoping the week improves from here...