Stardate 62279.99 - Home At Last

Friday was a delightful day to fly on an American Airlines MD-80. I was out in Illinois all week for work, having left on Monday when there was no indication (of which I was aware) that travel on American was about to go Tango Uniform. All week I kept an eye on the news and the cancellations, and I was concerned when the Thursday version of my flight was canceled. I was also concerned when only one flight all day Friday made it to NYC. A couple made it to Chicago, but the legs to LaGuardia Airport (LGA) were canceled.

All day long my flight continued to show as on-time, however, so I got to the airport a good 2.5 hours prior to departure in case of problems. Then 45 minutes prior to departure, the text messages began. First, we were delayed 15 minute to a 7 PM departure. Ten minutes later, another 20 minute delay. Ten minutes after that, another 15 minute delay. And 40 minutes later, our original departure time of 6:45 PM was now 8 PM. Luckily, we were told, at this point the plane was en route from Dallas so it was clearly one that had been inspected and certainly nothing could keep us from LGA now.

I think it was 8:30 PM (Central Time) when we took off, but we were told by the Captain that we'd be at LGA at 11:15 PM. Then, around 11 PM it became obvious that we were circling. The Captain came on and told us that conditions at LGA were "below minimums" and we would divert to Kennedy (JFK). LGA is a 10-15 minute taxi ride to home, while JFK is more like 40 minutes. We finally landed and got to the gate at 11:30PM. Turns out we were the lucky ones, as other planes bound for LGA were diverted to Connecticut and Philly.

Almost an hour later, our luggage finally arrived at baggage claim. By this time, there were 50 people in line for Taxis, so I was was cursing under my breath and about to get into the line when one of the many illegal car service people asked me if I needed a car ($65 is the price he quoted me to get to Manhattan, which is $10 or $15 more than a Taxi ride). Faced with a 20+ minute wait in line, I took him up on his offer and we were off to Manhattan. At about 40 miles per hour. He was one of the slowest drivers I've ever ridden with. I seriously think I would have done better to wait in the Taxi line. Additionally, he went the wrong way off of the Queensboro Bridge and had to go a few blocks out of the way in order to get back around to our place.

I finally was home and in bed at 1:20 AM Saturday morning. But at least I got home.

I will say that the employees of American Airlines remained very professional throughout the evening, and we had many off-duty flight attendants on our flight trying to get to work. Believe me, they were just as inconvenienced as the rest of us were, but everyone kept their cool.


NYC