Winging It

Good Morning!

I am back in DC after an 11+ hour travel bonanza yesterday. It started out quite odd. We got to the airport at 9am for a 10:30 flight and went to check in at the self-serve kiosk. My reservation had been changed to another airline (with no details), and my colleague's reservation had been lost altogether. A third woman traveling back to DC from Austin had been switched to another airline too - but not the same airline listed on my screen.

Delta had two - maybe three - people available for a ridiculously long line of confused travelers. The man who helped us out spent a good 30 minutes trying to solve the mystery of the miraculously changing and disappearing flights. Turns out Delta "at the last minute" downgraded its plane and bumped 16 people off the flight. None of us got a notice from the airline.

My colleague and I got rebooked on an American Airlines flight a few hours later with a connection through Dallas we just barely made. The third woman had to fly Northwest through Memphis - a route she intentionally avoided due to a past nightmare layover in Memphis.

So much for free will.

We started our day meeting at 8:30am in the lobby of the hotel. I didn't walk in the door here until close to 8pm. And I know for a fact that our incident was not an exception to the rule. Several people yesterday had issues getting back.

Once I fix health care, I'm going after the airlines. What a mess.