Monday, June 16, 2008

One Long Day

Beth and Tim left for Florida Friday morning.   They flew out of Milwaukee, first to O'Hare and then on to Tampa.  The flight from Milwaukee to Chicago left pretty much on time and arrived on time.  The flight they were supposed to catch to Tampa started in Minneapolis, but it didn't get to Chicago until 1 minute before it was supposed to leave for Tampa, so their flight to Tampa was listed as 'Delayed' when I first went online to check.  So I kept the page open and refreshed periodically, and pretty soon their flight was listed as 'In Transit' - it said they had left at 2:10pm, 40 minutes late, but not horrible, right? 

They had been scheduled to arrive in Tampa at 5:10pm, so adding 40 minutes to that would bring it to 5:50pm.  However, the estimated arrival time just kept getting later and later, first 6:30pm, then 7:28pm.  What in the world?  Then, at 4:00, Beth called.  They were still in Chicago, sitting in the plane, waiting to take off.  Did she know why?  No.  Unfortunately, they hadn't called Tim's mom in time to prevent her from leaving for the airport to pick them up.

I kept checking the flight status, and they finally updated the actual departure time to 4:40pm, and they finally arrived in Tampa at 8:23pm.  Beth called about an hour later after they had collected their luggage and made it back to Tim's mom's house.  We haven't talked to her since - I'm sure she's way too busy to call her parents - so I don't know if she ever found out what took so long. 

Also, speaking of flying, airlines, and airports, today is the day the airlines start charging to check luggage.  Well, American Airlines, does and there are at least a couple other ones that followed American's example, though I'm not sure when their policies go into effect.  I's a conspiracy, I tell ya.  You have to watch the liquids you carry on board, so you can't take your toiletries on with you - so you have to check a bag, or plan to buy everything when you get to your destination.  Also, you can't take your own water through security (my personal pet peeve because I just don't go anywhere without my water) and now some of the airlines are going to charge $2 for drinks - even bottled water.  So, sitting and waiting to take off - how many bottles of water do you think I'd have to buy?  AS if the airline ticket didn't cost enough.  I really don't plan on flying any time soon.

1 comment:

  1. Waiting our flight schedule for hours at the airport has never been fun at all on these days.

    ReplyDelete

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