Originally Posted by
jrl767
1983 “fill-in-the-gap” questions
39A: Oh, those summer afternoon thunderstorms again! You and your partners are finalizing things at the project office in Quakertown so you can support the next day’s 7am client meeting in Loveland. A bit after 330pm, you get a message that your 615pm departure from Philadelphia has been delayed to where you’ll miss the last scheduled shuttle van trip from Denver’s Stapleton International to Fort Collins. The thought of a 70-some-mile late-night drive after four hours in that comfy first-class seat and an 11pm arrival is really unappealing, as is the thought of having to make it after a 430am hotel wakeup. No worries, though; your well-worn Pocket OAG reveals a 5pm connection that actually gets you into DEN a few minutes earlier than the nonstop.
We’re looking for the airline and equipment for the original flight; also the airline, routing, and equipment types that you’ll actually be taking.
I seem to remember PHL-DEN being an early route for UA's 767s so depending on when in 1983 this happened, the delayed PHL-DEN nonstop could have been a UA 767. As a bonus, was the delayed nonstop I won't be taking flight 629? (I did not look this up. I just remember UA629 as a PHL-DEN flight number. There are some flight numbers I will always remember i.e. UA 32/33 SFO-PHL-SFO, UA 98/99 LAX-PHL-LAX. UA22 SFO-JFK, AA21 JFK-LAX, etc.)
Anyway, as for the alternate connecting flight instead of the delayed nonstop, it would have had to have been a pretty efficient routing with a 5pm departure and arrival around 8pm or so (assuming nonstop would be about a 4 hour block time). Let me guess that the backup plan is Delta via CVG with 727-200s operating both PHL-CVG and CVG-DEN.