TUL-DFW-SEA

5-18 6:35pm DL4811 TUL-DFW Seat 5a
I arrive at TUL 20 min before flight time. Boarding the Emb. Brasilia is uneventful and quick despite the fact only one gate agent was both collecting boarding passes and checking in arriving passengers.

The flight was a little longer than usual since the pilot had to fly around some bad weather between us and Dallas but we still managed to arrive at DFW around 8:05. The flight attendant was very cheerful but almost overly appologetic about the delay. We land only 20min behind schedule. The customer service rep at the gate informs me that my flight to SEA is on time for a 9:05 departure from E20.

5-18 9:05pm DL1235 DFW-SEA Seat 2d
After grabbing a quick bite to eat i decide to head to my gate. It is 8:50 and boarding has already begun. I take my F/C seat and take my extra few minutes to make a call to my fiancee to let her know I will be arriving home on-time for once. (I told her it was because i wasn't flying AA) As i ended the call i noticed quite an impressive show of lightning in the distance but dismissed it as being too far away to be of any significance to airport traffic. Before leaving the gate we were served drinks (whiskey-7) and pretzels. Service was quick, courteous, and everything one would expect for F/C.

Boy was i wrong about the lightning!! As we are pulling out from the gate the captain announces that due to the inbound storm, ATC was not allowing take-offs but we were going to go wait in line anyway hoping the storm would pass quickly. The flight attendants decide to start a movie to keep everyone from going stir-crazy. Beverage service follows soon after the movie begins. When i ordered another whiskey-7 i was told that she could not serve alcohol while we were on the ground at DFW. Considering I had just been served a drink I thought this was a bit arbitrary but I did not feel like challenging it and settled for water. Does anyone know if this is a DL policy or a general FAA policy?

1:10am-I am glad that I forked over the miles for an upgrade. It definately made the wait bearable. Finally after 2 movies ("Hanging up" with Meg Ryan, and some movie about a horse race scandal with Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges, both of which I had not seen) and an episode of CNN we take off. Talk about your bad luck. I counted 37 planes take-off ahead of us. It took 1hr22min from the time the first plane took-off to the time our wheels left the pavement. Slept the rest of the flight and landed at SEA 2:35am Pacific time 3hrs/40 min behind sched.

Considering the weather delay I think Delta did a good job of handling themselves. The pilot did mention that if it had taken 15 more minutes to take-off the crew would have been illegal and we would have had to return to the gate and fly out in the morning.

Hopefully next week will be better.
-rollyo11