Airline Adventures

With all the news and drama about problems with airlines, I was curious as to how my flight to LA was going to be, especially since I was flying with a ticket that was on the cheaper end. At first I was sure that I was flying on United, which has generated a lot of bad publicity recently when the beat up one of their passengers. I was hoping to see a similar scenario play out on my flight... just kidding. In the end, I was on American, not United.

Anyway, in the quest to save money (the more the better), I went for a bargain fare and had to accept what I was given, which meant traveling at less than convenient hours. I was landed in LA at midnight, and I caught the red-eye back home, neither of which are ideal, which is putting it lightly. The reason I went this route was because leaving later to LA meant I could have more time at home with my family (an extra day), and taking the red-eye meant I could have a full, or something close to that, once I got home. I was supposed to land at 7:00AM, whereby I could then catch the 9:00AM bus and be back by 11:00AM, giving me the rest of the day to deal with life. Then again, things don't always turn out the way you plan them, do they?

First off, the flight to LA had a layover in Dallas, and the second leg was ahead of schedule. The crew made a point of telling us how early we were, and at first I was stoked because it meant getting to my mom's house a little earlier, perhaps. What was really lame, and I've heard this is not uncommon on American Airlines, is that even though they land early, they couldn't taxi to the gate until their allotted time. So while we landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule, we sat on the tarmac for at least 45 minutes, I kid you not. Our scheduled time to the gate was midnight and we ended up getting there around 12:30. It was such a drag sitting on that plane because I knew my friend GF was waiting to pick me up. I got to my mom's house well after 1:00AM. Total bummer.

On the flight back things weren't much better. I was scheduled to leave on a 10:00PM flight, landing in Boston at 7:00AM. There was a massive equipment delay and we didn't get on the plane until 12:30AM; that's a 2.5 hour delay, I couldn't believe it. We landed around 9:30AM, so I missed the 9:00AM bus and had to wait for the 11:00AM. I finally got home around 1:30, which was later than I had hoped, but at least the sun was still out and it was a nice day.

It was a bummer being delayed but there were some bright notes. First off, I scored a window seat on my first leg to LA, and then on my trip home, I initially had a middle seat but was able to change it to a window on the day of the flight. I was stoked because it was an overnight and it helps to have a window or aisle to sleep.

One last sour note, me and the guy next to me thought we had an empty seat between us when at the very last second some people came on and of course the guy sat between us. Not only was he on the big side, but he was also a bit odiferous... is that even a word?

Oh well, what are you going to do? Traveling is an adventure and when things go awry, it always makes for a good story. All in all I thought the trip went well and despite my complaining, the flights were all good.

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Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kyle1194 for the (amazing) pic.