YUL-ATL
DL 5205
6:02P-8:45P sked
7:00P-9:07P actual with another 30 effing minutes to the gate
CR9
Dinner (sort of)
May 11, 2011
Excellent YUL ground staff, but...
One of the most pathetic "performances" by an airline and cabin crew in a long time. PDB but sorry, we're out of gin because "we only loaded 4 bottles of gin in ATL". Post-departure drink not served prior to dinner, but served with dinner, a sorry cold chicken salad with Sesame Oriental dressing and disgusting fruit bowl. Yeah, I always like my cocktail with dinner.
And don't even think about timely refills. FAs Jamal and Denise disappeared to Y for 15 minutes after distributing meal/drink service. Had to flag one down for a refill. The only redeeming part of dinner service was the Dancing Deer Blonde Bar.
But for sheer stupidity on the ground, tonight took the cake. We touched down 58 minutes before my ATL-SFO connection. Yet it took 31 minutes to reach the gate. OK, I understand ATL congestion but DL ground ops were clueless tonight. Assigned us C-50. At T-48 we reach the gate area only to find a 738 occupying C-48 leaving no room for anything larger than a SmartCar to park at C-48. Tick-tock-tick-tock, we are now assigned C-45 (opposite of the terminal), which is now blocked by a procession of homeless AirTran and DL metal. We have to follow the conga-line on the D side of the C/D tarmac and then make a U-turn back (at C-11) and stop-start-stop-start back to C-45, now arriving at T-27. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait for any gate check bags as I "snuck" both my carry on and back pack on board. The European Tumi CO fits perfectly in the CR9 overhead, much to the surprise of FA Denise who told me it wouldn't fit, but at least let me try when I told her it fit on other 900s.
Nights like this and I wonder why am I knocking myself out for DM.
