Stuck inside of MCI with the weather-related-travel-delay blues, again December 23
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, and I have learned my lesson: next time I fly home in the winter, I’m renting a car to get home.
Last year, flying home to the Midwest for Christmas resulted in a 2+ hour wait at the Kansas City airport for my turboprop, puddle-jumper connecting flight, which, of all things, was running behind because of snow in Texas. It wasn’t a huge issue, but it was a frustrating and annoying experience that caused my parents to have to pick me up around 1:30 in the morning rather than a more reasonable time like 11 p.m.
This year, I made sure to book an earlier pair of flights, one that would get me out of DC around noon and landed and in my parents’ house by 4. However, heavy fog surrounded National (it was so bad that when Tomahawk Chop drove me to DCA down Rock Creek Parkway you couldn’t even see the Potomac at some points) and Vermonstrous called me around 10:30 a.m. to tell me to check on my flight as hers back home was canceled and she was moved to a later flight. I actually already had received a message from US Airways — no, not about this — telling me that my flight would be delayed about an hour because of operational issues and therefore I would miss my connecting flight at MCI. I called back and tried to reschedule and while the CSR worked to find me a flight on another airline, I did a quick Travelocity search and saw that the only flight available that would get me to my final destination was at 10:30 p.m., rather than the originally scheduled 2:30 p.m. Resigning myself to 7 hours in an airport terminal, I mentioned this flight to the CSR and she got me a seat on the late flight.
TC and I arrived at National and noticed that all the signs and screens said my flight was still on time. Deciding it was best to be safe rather than sorry, I went ahead and went through security since I had half an hour before my original departure time. After scurrying through the checkpoint (side note: who knew snow globes were considered dangerous by the TSA?), I rushed to the gate and found out that while the plane was scheduled to leave at its original time, they were still waiting on the captain. Assured that it would be just a few minutes and dreaming of possibly getting back on my original connecting flight, I quickly found V, updated her on the situation and then went back to my gate.
About 30 minutes later with no progress having been made (though I did see a guy who I swear is a dead ringer for MBG, though server permissions are messed up so I can’t upload the image to prove it), I saw V walk over to the food-court seating area so I went and caught up with her for a few, stealing some of her Five Guys fries before noticing that my flight had finally started to board. While I did end up having no one sit beside me — take that, Meatball! — we took off around 1:30, meaning I was still stuck with the ass-late connecting flight home.
So, here I am at MCI, nearing five hours into my downtime and praising any deity who will listen for the free Wifi here (however close it may be to dial-up at times). I’ve harassed CV about his Bengals being unable to tank properly, talked to TC about her trip to the National Ballet today, started planning a visit with my best friend back home for Wednesday, caught up on some Internet reading and compared horror stories with a co-worker who missed his connecting flight in Atlanta because of the DC fog. Things could definitely be worse, but I’ve learned my lesson. No more connecting flights, especially not in times when inclement weather is likely.