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Flight difficulties??

 

Last Thursday I endured a rather difficult journey from Denver to West Palm Beach FL.  I had a flight from Denver to Dallas at 9am.  It was supposed to have a 50 minute layover and then head to FLA for a 4:30pm or so arrival EST.

Board the plane on time in Denver.  At 8:50am the captain comes on and asks us to "cross our fingers" so they can get the engines to start as a valve is not functioning properly.  About 5 minutes later they do fire up, and the captain thanks us for our efforts.  Very comforting to know that works so well ;-)

Pretty normal flight to Dallas and we hit the point where we start to descend.  A few minutes in our good buddy comes on again and informs us that DFW has closed due to high winds.  We are to circle until we receive an alternate airport, likely San Antonio.  Then we are told we are heading to Austin.  As we continue south, DFW reopens and we turn back to land.  Very choppy descent that seemed to take a long time.  Well over halfway down the engines roar to life and we start climbing.  Captain says it is not going to work.  Land in Austin, sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes.  Get to a gate, can't deplane unless Austin was a final destination (and for a lucky few it was).  Fuel truck comes to fill us up and can't get the fuel door open as an electronic lock has failed.  Finally fill up and after a 3 hour total wait in Austin we make a 40 minute flight back to Dallas.

Needless to say everyone has missed their connections.  I had to make 3 calls to different advisors at the airline to finally squeeze my way on to the lone flight by any airline going out to PBI that night.

So what should have been a simple day turned into 19 hours of time door to door.

Of course it got me thinking, and as many PuristS are frequent travelers, what have your nightmare flights been like?  I'm sure the stories get much worse than this.  At the end of the day at least I arrived safe and sound smile

PS - the way home was better, but my connection from Dallas to Denver left 1 hour late due to a faulty fuel throttle that needed to be replaced...
This message has been edited by MichaelC on 2012-03-14 08:35:40

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15 Comments view entire thread 

re: flight difficulties

 
By: DRMW : March 14th, 2012-09:00
That sucks to hear about your flight but fortunately you got home safely. Yeah, I usually hate flying as you are at the total mercy of the airlines and despite how nice the FA's and check in counter/gate/lounge personnel are and even if you are traveling ... 

That's just it.

 
By: MichaelC : March 16th, 2012-06:35
Every flight oversold, trouble with the overhead bins and passengers taking way more on board, rude staff... it is a tough business. I have no problems with flying, but I sure loathe the process.

Sarcastic Captains

 
By: nikolaj : March 14th, 2012-10:28
I must say that despite being a fairly frequent traveller, I have fortunately experienced very few hardships while flying. Of course I have been stranded due to snow, ice, volcanic ash and the like, but it always caught me on land rather than in the air. ... 

Had a flight from Chicago to Houston

 
By: JerryW : March 14th, 2012-19:29
As we approached Houston the pilot informed us due to weather we could not land. After about 90 minutes of circling the captain told us we had enough fuel to get to Austin. Once in Austin we were told we could not leave the plane, after two hours we were ... 

So we both know Austin now.

 
By: MichaelC : March 16th, 2012-06:38
I could tell as we taxied in I was not going to catch a direct flight from there to Palm Beach! Unfortunately no APs on this trip. I usually go through Fort Lauderdale and visit my friends at the Boutique, but not this time. In fact, I hardly saw a nice w... 

Where do I begin?

 
By: ThomasM : March 14th, 2012-20:38
Hi, Michael, Sorry you had to endure that. Over the past several years I've averaged 250k miles a year or more (true airmiles) with generally about 4-6 round trips per month. I can't say I've seen or experienced everything, but * we had to make an unsched... 

Haha Ming... Imagine sitting there for 12 hours

 
By: nikolaj : March 15th, 2012-05:09
as a pimple on Kitty's forehead That photo reminds me of another thread on this forum some years back about being stuck with rental cars that just did not suit you or your image Nikolaj

LOL! well, at least you didn't get stuck driving this...

 
By: DRMW : March 15th, 2012-12:16
-MW This message has been edited by DRMW on 2012-03-15 14:04:07...  

Good to be back TM.

 
By: MichaelC : March 16th, 2012-06:43
Kind of a side note to this thread topic, but anywhere I go, or when I get real swamped with life, I always feel home when I log back in here That is a continued testament to you and this incredible Community. As for flying, yes, I had a feeling you have ... 

What airline were u flying?...

 
By: chaser579 : March 15th, 2012-05:13
All of the US airlines suck these days, and the 2 worst (especially out of Denver) are Southwest (they charge for everything and anything), and American Airlines. Frontier is okay but they have those stupid 'animals on the tail' commercials instead of let... 

You guessed it...

 
By: MichaelC : March 16th, 2012-06:46
AA. I did not mention it earlier because it could happen on any airline. But I will say, in this limited experience on American, the flight attendants were rather inconsiderate across the board. I have not encountered that on other airlines.