On Sep. 26 I was supposed to fly ATL-IAH-SFO.

CO's planes had unfortunately gotten wet and they had to put each one in the dryer... so all flights out of ATL (including the JungleJet to CLE, which does not come from IAH) were heavily delayed. 98% of all other airlines' flights were on time.

So I told the CO agent in ATL I wanted to stand-by for the NW flight via MSP to SFO, which was on-time and had empty seats.

I had a NORTHWEST e-ticket.

It took the agent no less than 25 min and 3 phone calls to endorse my ticket over to NW- all I wanted was to stand-by on the airline I was ticketed for.

As a result my return was a mess, as he had dumped my seat assignment and disconnected the PNR from the ticket number.

E-tickets... What a mess...