Boarding Fail

Chicago turned out to be pretty awesome. The weather was kind, the nightlife was good, and I enjoyed staying at the W Lakeshore with a gorgeous view of the Navy Pier and lake Michigan.

But after several days here, including a three day music festival, I was a sore, sleep-deprived shell of my usual self, and was ready to get home, eager to sink into that one really comfortable spot on my couch. But was it really going to be that easy?

It’s never that easy. That’s why this blog exists.

We got to the airport and had lunch, expecting to take off at 1:30 Chicago time. Just as I was getting halfway through my caesar salad (it’s the only healthy meal I ate all weekend - don’t judge me) my phone rang with a robo-call from Delta, telling my flight was delayed by 30 minutes. No big deal, I thought, it’s just a minor delay.

Thirty minutes later the flight was cancelled.

Apparently there was a ground stop in New York. Something to do with Air Traffic Control’s inability to handle that many flights at once. As we sat at the gate in limbo, wondering if the recent sequester’s cuts had anything to do with ATC’s newfound ineptitude, Delta managed to find us on a new flight. Just like that!

A few delays later, we finally boarded our new plane, which was scheduled to depart at 4 and would get us to New York by 7. But just as we taxied over to the runway, and the flight attendant yelled at me to turn off my phone for the third time, the pilot greeted us with this wonderful nugget of disappointment:

“Hey folks, we’ve got a bit of bad news for ya. We’re having some technical difficulties with the electrical assembly system (read: BROKEN PLANE) and we’re going to have to return to the gate. We apologize for the inconvenience blah blah blah”

15 minutes later:

“Folks, we’re being told that all gates are occupied by other aircraft. We’re kind of stuck here right in the middle of the take off line, so as soon as some of these planes take off, we’ll be right on our way… back to the gate that is.”

I’ve now been here long enough to have my second meal at this terminal today. I’m pretty sure the wait staff is giving me questionable looks as I order my third round of pre-flight drinks (which is Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, in case someone reading this finds me stranded at the saddest end of an airport bar). I’d really hate the idea of spending any more time at this germ-filled cesspool, so I went I search of a new, hopefully more punctual flight.

Finally, with as much enthusiasm as a DMV employee, the lovely folks at Delta’s customer service desk placed us on a 6:30 flight to LaGuardia. The time now is 6:15 and there’s still no plane here for us to board.

Update: Plane number three had a mechanical problem. Never even boarded. We got bumped to our FOURTH plane of the day, and against all odds actually managed to get on and take off! After watching them do the seat belt dance for the second time today, I can finally enjoy the only decent service Delta provides: in-flight wifi.

As we approached NYC and circled around Manhattan, I thought I could relax, believing we were home free. But after an exceptionally rough landing, the captain tells us that the gates at Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia are all occupied and we were going to have to wait. Still. Again.

Last Thursday I arrived at New York’s LaGuardia Airport feeling excited to finally visit Chicago for the first time. Having heard that its a smaller, cleaner version of New York, I was looking forward to actually checkin out this seemingly magical place. But as always, fate laughed in the face of my naïve plan, and thought I should enjoy a bit of fuckery first.

The weather in NYC was particularly stormy that morning, and delayed my flight, as we as several others, for about two hours. Still seated at the gate as boarding time approached, I thought “why am I not on the plane?” and “Should I eat again?”. Then, just as the rain was ending, the raspy cigarette-ravaged voice of the airline agent informed us that our flight was cancelled.

But wait, good news everyone! We have another flight for you, just like that! It’s a lot like your last flight, except it leaves later, your seats are different, and we’ll probably lose your luggage.

Hours later, I arrived in Chicago, just in time to see the massive amount of rush hour traffic that the Windy City had to offer on the ONE highway between O’Haire and downtown.

Well, at least it was cleaner.

This is the gem in my collection of massive failures. A passenger on my American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York became impatient and began screaming all kind of indiscernible nonsense. The flight crew allowed her to go on like this for about an hour before having Air Marshall interfere. When then didn’t help, American diverted the flight to Kansas City to let the unruly passenger off the plane. The video captures her glorious stride down the aisle, adorned with handcuffs and the gentle touch of a police officer, as she belted out Whitney Houson’s “I Will Always Love You”, performed in the key of WTF.

This video got picked up by the Kansas City local news, then spread like wildfire to the Today Show, Good Morning America, and various other media outlets. You can clearly hear flight attendants telling people not to take pictures. I truly hope the irony of this video is not lost on them.