Fun in Philly
 

Flew to PHL last month for a one night conference. Upon arriving at the airport for our return, we discovered that our flight back AC7917 had been cancelled. We were able to get shuffled off onto a USAIR flight leaving at 20:45 instead. No problem until we got to Security. All of us had to go through the extra routine:

Stand in the booth of presumed guilt.
Nod at our carryons being taken aside.
Stand on a ominous looking black mat.
Frisked by security staff sans shoes.
Told to sit in the chair of presumed guilt.
Told under no circumstances to touch our stuff until vetted.
Given our shoes back, given our stuff back and told to have a pleasant evening.

I assume this happened because we were all last minute travel changes.

THEN, we had to walk to our gate. If you know PHL, it was all the way from Terminal D to A West, a walk of about 16 miles. At least we had time for a nice dinner. The flight home was sparsely filled despite all the AC people trying to get home, so I had 3 seats to myself. Arriving at T3 instead of T1 was OK because it put me closer to the reduced rate lot with the Link train.

AND I had scored a spot next to the checkout booth the night before.

All in all, fun and games in the grand and glamorous world of business travel.

Sorry but I have to correct your spelling mistake. I think you meant to spell "theatre"
Everything you saw and did there was for show.:)

That happened to me once in PHL as well. I found out ahead of time 7917 was cancelled, so I had to call and beg to be let onto USAIR.

Got to Term B, checked in, but the check-in agent refused to take off the dreaded SSSS even after I explained the situation to him. At least the extra screening didn't take too much extra time...

Fact: the bad guys will always book their tickets month in advance.
Fact: they will only buy one ways, as their organizations don't have much money, so won't spring for the round trip. Unless they book it over a Saturday night of course, and then it would be cheaper, but they wouldn't know that.
Fact: they won't pay with credit cards

I wonder if there is a single bad guy who can crack the SSSS code?! :-:

I still miss D9S and BAE146s out of PHL...

Simon

AC7917 PHL-YYZ often gets cancelled. When it's operating, it's usually delayed by 2 hours. I'm not sure why they even bother scheduling that flight.

The US B-737 flight departing at 8:45pm doesn't have stellar on-time performance, but it seldom cancels because that same aircraft is needed to operate the early morning YYZ-PHL flight.

QFT....Philly is one of the worse airports to fly out of...
and that AC7917 is the worse flight..
I have been flying into Philly for the last 1.5 years on a weekly basis...and if 7917 leaves 2 hrs late, i would consider that on time..

Just last week, the flight was cancelled....

Great for catching a nap before takeoff, though.

"We're 28th in line for takeoff..."

4 ssssss all the time. One way flights, 24 hr booking but it does have advantages sometime. TSA moves you to the "special line" and when the waits are 60 min. or more through regular security it is not bad.

You can safely drop the "one of."

I've had more success flying out of PHL than EWR...

How are you defining success? You make it through security? Plane actually takes off? Plane lands where it's supposed to at the other end? Your seatmate is cute? And thinks you are, too? :D

LoL... I get home much more often if I take 7917, compared to flying from EWR. It's not even funny how many times I've had to drive from EWR back to Toronto because of "bad weather" cancelling my flight at EWR.

Is it even possible for someone to still look cute after spending Mon - Thur in the Philly/Jersey area?

I think my personal record is hearing the captain say "we're so far down the line for takeoff that we don't even have a number", then 15 minutes later say "we're now 75th in line for takeoff...
I managed to watch 2 episode of Prison Break on my laptop before we took off.