duchy

To be honest I'm just gobsmacked that you were told the weather was bad AND saw your flight was cancelled and went to the airport expecting everything to be fine especially as you were flying with no status. Either should have alerted you to possible problems-the two together made it a virtual certainty. I think you arrived at the airport with unrealistic expectations based on a realively issue-free flying career to date.
But once your indignation has subsided I think you'll realize you were indeed lucky to get out the same day-and know what NOT to do next time you hit a serious irregular ops situation-and may (unlikely as it may seem to you right now) benefit from this experience !

westcoastman

Looking at the flights that day I think you were on the right track by trying to get on a Delta flight which has many codeshares with CO, however, they were probably trying to get their own PAX out from Friday's cancellations.

Sojourn

As I said, there were about 15 to 20 of us standing by D12 after the gate agent had made the final boarding call announcement. The feeling when most of our names weren’t called was sheer disappointment. Tired and totally frustrated, I decided to call it a day and get a hotel room.

The problem with this decision was most everyone else was in the same boat I was. That meant all of the hotels were sold out. I should mention, the woman I was with had family in Atlanta and decided to fly out on Monday. We said our goodbye’s and I walked outside of baggage claim to get some fresh air. I pull out my cell to call more hotels and this man, smoking a cigaret sits down next to me. He asks if he can borrow my phone, but I got the impression he would run away with it or something. So I just said, it was dead. Then he starts talking to me about his cousin in New York that is all alone and other family issues. It was just so bazar, don’t have that kind of conversation with me if you don’t know me. Anyway, I actually found one room at the Comfort Inn and Suites like 3 miles from the airport.

Now it’s Sunday morning and I had the urge to go to the airport and see what more I could do. The previous evening I wasn’t planning on this and just accepted leaving on Monday. I checked the CO timetable and saw the last flight of the day left at 9:45P.M. I got ready and left again for the airport. If being on every standby list until that 9:45P.M departure meant leaving ATL that day then I was going to do it. The airport was surprisingly quiet at 12:30P.M. when I got there.

The next available flight I could leave on was CO 1150 that departed at 3:45P.M. I asked the agent how many others were on the list and she said nine. Just then I got this amazing feeling that just mabey I would leave today. That time the day before there were close to 40 on the list so my chances were obviously better.

Nothing really eventful happened between like 1 and 2:30P.M. The people waiting by D12 looked different than the day before however. There weren’t a lot of desperate looking people. I think a lot of them just decided to cut their loses and leave the day they were rebooked for. I just couldn’t see doing that. How could I just sit in a hotel room when I wasn’t supposed to be in Atlanta in the first place?

Time passed pretty quickly and it was almost 3:45. I walked to Starbucks to get a coffee and a scone and when I came back the flight time had changed. Where was the announcement I wondered? The departure time was now 5:45P.M. I walked up counter to get a better look at the time ad see if what I was seeing was correct. Up there, I decided to ask the agent what the chances of me getting on the aircraft were. She looked at the list and said, “well your not in the top ten”. I then asked how many people were on the list. With that she said something like, we’re not permitted to give that information out. I just rolled my eyes and went back to my seat. There were already like 20 or so people there so I didn’t want to cause anyone to wait.

I’m sitting there looking out the window, watching all the jets take off and I hear the agent say, “will standby passenger so and so please come to the podium” She did this about two more times and my name wasn’t called. I didn’t think much of it since the standby procedure is done once the aircraft is fully boarded. Again I’m sitting there and I here her say it again but this time she said my name. I was like no fing, she totally just didn’t say my name.


I go up to the counter and identify myself and hand over my standby boarding pass and she gives me a normal one. I stood there completely shocked, but with an even bigger smile on my face than before. Even better, the flight time has changed again to 4:00P.M. I looked at my cell and it was a few minutes to. I was in row 23 and according to Flightaware, the aircraft was a 737-300 so my row was the first one they called. You can imagine, there’s a lot of people waiting at the gate now. They called like 5 standby’s before I got on the aircraft and probably not too many after the process was done. I just couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Here I thought I was going to be stuck in Atlanta for another night and I was sitting in my seat on a Continental jet.

It didn’t take them long to board the aircraft and shut the door. It was like a twenty minute process, or there abouts. I got a window seat so as we pulled away, I looked at D12 and wondered how many were looking back and didn’t get on this aircraft. As were on the tarmac taxying, the captain informs us because of congestion at Newark, we might not be taking off promptly. Were moving along heading to the runways past that “Fly Delta Jets” sign and come to a stop. The captain comes on again and tells us we will not be able to take off until 6:30P.M.

Not a problem, I still have power in my cell so I make several calls to pass the time. To conserve fuel the captain shuts down the left engine and asks everyone on the left side of the aircraft to close their shades since the sun was still up. The crew passes out ice water and peanuts to all of us, which were very well received. It’s almost 6:30 now and the captain comes on again and tells us we cannot leave until 7:30. The situation at Newark has gotten worse. The conditions were quite windy earlier in day which caused other jets to be held up. No there was a gridlock because everything was arriving at once. All these issues were out of the pilots hands, what could you do?

The captain again came on and said the crew would be coming through with a bar cart but might have to end it abruptly since he was on his cell with the flight coordinator at Newark trying to move out time up. As most of you know, airlines cannot serve alcohol while on the ground. The captain made jokes about this which I thought was pretty good. About 10 or 15 minutes passed and he came back and said he was still on hold so we might have to tern back for the gate. It is now approximately 7:30P.M.

This was one the best flight crews I have ever experienced. The captain kept us constantly informed and at ease. He was extremely professional. He comes on again, but this time with some rather unsettling news. The crew has been working since 4:30A.M. and domestic flight crews cannot work more than 16 hours in a day. If we could not get a time for wheels up by 8:30P.M. the crew would become illegal and the flight would have to be cancelled. At this point my heart was almost ready to stop. I actually get on the aircraft and it might be cancelled. I’m siting there wishing they could serve alcohol but then the captain comes on again.

I’m on the edge of my seat and he said, “good news, we’re going to now have a wheels up time of 8:17". We had 13 minutes to spare, everyone was extremely grateful. About 5 minutes after that announcement we began to taxi for the runway. We had spent about 4 hours on the tarmac but were finally about to get airborne.

We took off sometime close to 8:30 with a flight time of one hour and forty-seven minutes. I’m not sure if the crew ever went illegal but it was damn close. The flight was extremely smooth. We went into a holding pattern over Raleigh but touched down in Newark around twenty after 10. As expected, Newark was a complete zoo. I didn’t care. I was home and the weather only shot two days of my spring break.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this. I had a black carry-on bag that I fully intended to check-in. Due to being on standby, I just took it with me. I had several items (moisturizer and cologne) packed in there. People were getting their items confiscated but for some reason nothing happened to me. Mind you, I went through security twice with the same result. Just something interesting. I guess with so many people, it’s hard to monitor each and every bag.

Sojourn

This might not count as a nightmare for some of you, but it certainly was one for me. Even though it was very unpleasant, I had so much fun. I met a lot of really cool people, laughed and experienced new things. If I wanted to avoid this entire ordeal, I should have called Thursday to be rebooked. I shouldn’t have waited so long. So many of you are right, this is a learning experience. The next time I probably won’t fly when snow is in the forecast though. I hope you enjoyed my report. There will be more to follow...not to worry. (When I get more flying experience )

asnovici

Good to hear that you finally got to EWR, and the flight itself went smoothly (except for the wait for take off).

Just slightly off-topic, but since you mentioned it in your post: yes, they can serve alcohol on the ground and do so daily and on every flight for pre-departure beverages for First Class on domestic flights, and also in Business Class on International. Every US based legacy airline does it, with exception of AS (they serve bottles of water).

Good luck with your future travel!

braefoot

I enjoyed reading this as you have a fine writing style.
Thanks.

New York City Flyer

Very interesting to hear about your travel ideal.

Unfortunately these situations are very difficult. I've found myself in similar situations.

Among other things I would have considered would have been getting Continental to write my ticket over to Delta to Washington or Baltimore if there were any availability, Amtrak can really be a lifesaver in these situations. If the agents had insisted they would not write the ticket to Delta (say an award ticket or use of a voucher, I don't know), just hypothetically say Delta were absolutely not an option I would have looked at going to Houston or Cleveland where I would have had more options on Continental.

With experience you'll learn to think outside the box. If the flight is cxld the flight is cxld its not going to be a good morning, you have to be prepared to find creative solutions on your own and sell those solutions to the agent who can decide whether or not to make it happen. Sounds like the first person you dealt with at the ticket counter would have done more for you if you were even better prepared.

Sojourn

Funny you should mention getting to another city. Saturday, I could have gotten to Cleveland on Continental. I know it’s a hub but I’ve never been there and don’t know anything about it. Looking back, mabey I should have gone there but I’m not sure.

PresRDC

Well that depends on what the status was of flights going to New York from Cleveland. I woudl guess that things would not have been much better.

Another thought. When flying into NYC, you could also ask for flights to JFK, LGA, HPN and ISP, or maybe even PHL, BDL or BOS if you were willing to drive or train it from there.

Law5gal

<<If life gives you lemons, grab some tequila and salt>>

Were the airport bars full too?

If this is the worst thing that happens to you this year....count yourself lucky and thank the Big Guy upstairs.

Law5gal

opushomes

I join Violist and the inelegant bunch who think your complaints are trivial. Having a few more flying years than OP under my belt, things happen. Proactiveness lessens the burden, but what happen to you is a minor everyday irritation to many travelers.

Your spring break was not ruined. In fact, I am sure that you will bore your friends with this exciting event for years to come. Now, if it had been something like a crash, a flame out, the wheels refusing to retract, you might have justification for your complaint.

asnd16

LOL horrible . . . Pictures I want to see the pictures of the officers, and what this lady looked like.

dcpatti

I was flying UA on that Friday, stuck somewhere far from DC, and I desparately needed to end up at LGA on Saturday. This is made more complicated by my having 2 different PNR's for this event--- one as the return of my IAD-SAT trip, and a second of DCA-LGA. When my flight from IAD-SAT was cancelled and I got rerouted, I knew right there I was never going to make my US flight DCA-LGA and got the same busy signals trying to call reservations to change to a later Friday flight.

So I booked a new reservation online.

And when I ended up in DEN and knew I wasn't going to make the later DCA-LGA flight, I booked a Saturday flight online.

You rarely get a busy signal on the Internet.

Now, all of this was a moot point--- not much was flying into LGA (or JFK or EWR) on Saturday and I ended up using my 3 cancelled DCA-LGA flights towards other travel but I would have been happier if I had made it to LGA in the first place. Surprisingly, the last-minute tickets to LGA were not all that much more expensive than the original ticket but even if it'd been three times the price, it would have been worth it if it had gotten me to NY in time for the event I was hoping to attend.

When it comes to irregular operations, you HAVE to be creative. It would be nice if all GA's were as resourceful as I can be with my laptop and a wireless connection (and I've even routed my laptop through my cell phone more than once just to get the Internet connection), but when you're the 900th ticked-off customer they've had to deal with that day, and they're not getting good, accurate flight status from HQ, all they really want to do is get you out of their face. Not the best customer service, but I know from my customers, sooner or later you just want to be left alone to do your job and you don't have any more "nice" in you. And it would be nice if customer service lines didn't ring busy but with hundreds of thousands of people all calling at the same time, well, since there's not an infinite supply of reservations agents, not everyone's going to get helped.

It's a free-for-all once those cancellations start happening and you're the only one that is going to get you out of the airport. You can't rely on any airline to do that for you. If you see your flight for tomorrow is cancelled and there's any chance of getting out tonight, take it. Don't go to sleep. If you show up at the airport and the cancellations are starting, line up your hotel ASAP--- if you get a 6pm cancellation policy, you at least have somewhere you can sleep if things go too far south, and you have until early evening to see if you can get a flight out or not. Use the Internet to book a seat on every possible flight instead of waiting for reservations to help you--- if it's a storm like that weekend's was, the airlines will be waiving their cancellation fees and you can sort out your credits and vouchers after it's all over.

But when you are stuck, along with a couple hundred thousand other people, and the flights are being cancelled left and right, the last thing you should do is depend on the gate agents to take care of you.

While I can certainly empathize with the OP, I don't really feel sorry for him. I missed my plans, too, and I was really disappointed to lose out on what should have been a great weekend away. And I didn't get much help from the airlines, either, but at least I would have had a nice hotel to stay in at DEN if I hadn't gotten back east, and I was guaranteed a seat on a Saturday flight if only the weather had co-operated (Amtrak was, sadly, sold out). At least I tried.

Mikey likes it

Doesn't sound like a particularly big deal to me. If you really needed to get to NYC so bad, you could have rented a car with your NYPD pal and gotten there in a long day's drive.

Mikey likes it

I think you're right.