HedgeFundFlyer

June 21. I am on the 3:40 p.m. IAH-JFK, landing at 8:41 p.m. EK flight leaves at 11:00 p.m. Generally plenty of time since CO takes me into Terminal 4 at JFK, which is where EK departs from. Despite holding patterns, lightning, etc. we land at 8:55 p.m. I breathe a sigh of relief, since the CO/EK tickets are totally separate bookings (and I don't want to have to deal with EK on a problem issue due to much reported sketchy customer service).

After landing, we don't move for two and a half hours. I miss my EK flight. Flights were coming and going around us, but a whole string of aircraft sat on the tarmac for two and a half hours waiting to go to gates. ATC issues.

(I'm sure many of you also had crazy NYC travel issues Thursday night as well.)

Additionally, the barkeep at the IAH PC in E was quite rude to me.

Plus, an FA threatened to sing to us as we were trapped on the tarmac.

Despite all of this, I will not be seeking compensation and I do intend to keep giving CO the majority of my domestic travel.

Cheers.

TWA Fan 1

I take it you were stuck on the tarmac because an outgoing a/c occupying your gate was delayed due to ATC.

It's too bad the option of using a bus in these circumstances is so uncommon.

fly2w

In a situation like this why do the airlines not use a different gate?

oklAAhoma

Imagine the domino effect. All the people waiting inside to board the arriving flight have to move to the new gate. And the people waiting at that gate for their flight have to move to yet another gate and so on and so forth...

cpx

This reminds me of a scene from the movie "Airplane" (i think that was it)

oklAAhoma

Well, if it wasn't, it should have been.

(But I think you are right. Guess it's time to order it from Netflix... just to doublecheck.)

nomad1974

1) Kudos on your patience ^

2) Would you care to tell us how the rest of your trip went? Precisely because of issues previously reported regarding EK's "flexibility" on the ground, it would be interesting to see how this was dealth with. Thanks.

michaelw9

Now arriving at Gate 15.............Gate 16..........Gate 17..........Gate 19.......Gate 24........

Noanker1

I guess your refering to "Airplane"- great movie. I just watched it again with my kids a couple of months ago.

TWA Fan 1

One of the issues in this case is that CO has a very small number of gates at JFK.

fajimenez

Will you post this here or in the EK forum?

bobsgt

I was departing MRY for LAX on 15 June 2007 (17:31 departure on UA operated by SkyWest), when the GA actually sang into the PA "Zippity do dah, zippity ay, you better check in if you want to get to LA"

He was so pleased with himself he sang it again about 5 minutes later. It was amusing to hear it once, but if I was a regular on this route I can imagine it would get old in a hurry.

And for the "Airplane!" fans here, he was NOT playing the guitar...

craz

Instead of Arriving make it Departing, and that was exactly what we were doing last Mon at ORD changing gates and concourses every 30 mins over 3 hrs

(not to confuse anyone it was an AA flight)

HedgeFundFlyer

The pilot actually told us our gate was open the whole time, but there was a long line of aircraft ahead of us so we literally couldn't move. The reason for the line-up was that the line of departing planes was backed-up nose to tail and none of the planes stuck on the tarmac could break through the line, and ATC wasn't cooperating. Bizarre.

HedgeFundFlyer

I'm going to post this in the EK forum.