Terminal Case

I'm realizing that I left off the last day of my trip, the day where I (thankfully) returned home.

Our flight was supposed to leave at noon local time. That would get us home around 6pm Central time. Not too bad and only a little later than I'd get home had I worked a regular day on Thursday.

We left for the airport around 9:30am, since my colleague wanted to get there a little early and do some work. I figured, 'why not', since I had a few books and my iPod. Plus, we would be sitting in the AA Admiral's Club (since he's a member) and they'd have food and drinks there and stuff.

Getting through security was no problem (even with two laptops each) and we headed to the club. We relaxed for a couple hours and then WHAMMO...our flight's departure time was changed to 2:15pm. It stunk, but there's nothing you can do, right?

around 1:45pm, we headed down to the gate...and here comes Round 2. The woman announces that the flight to Chicago that was to take off after ours (originally at 2:15pm, coincidentally) has been canceled. This does not do much for the holiday cheer of those around us. Also, our flight will now *board* at 3:45pm. I say *board* because we will not actually be leaving to fly anywhere. We'll just park somewhere out there because they need to clear the gate. Basically, they need to get rid of us. She said we'd probably leave at 5pm, but she couldn't promise anything. That's always nice.

We go back to the club. There, we hear about a guy whose flight was canceled and he would not be able to get out until that Sunday...Christmas Eve. Yikes.

We did actually board at 3:45pm. And we did actually leave at 5pm. Our seats were in First so even though we sat there without going anywhere for a while at least they were nice chairs. Also, they played the movie "Invincible" which I wanted to see, so that was nice.

When we got there, we headed to our baggage claim and waited and waited. Our flight was up on the monitor for this claim, but it was another flight's baggage. I told my colleague that I was going to look at the other claims and see if our bags were anywhere else. After walking down 4-5 vestibules I found them and called him. After I got my bags I walked past our original claim and told everybody where our flight's bags actually were and people were pissed at the airline big time.

Anyway, I'm just glad we got home Thursday, and safely.