The Best Part of Flying

It is 1051 a.m. I am sitting in the Tallahassee airport, waiting for my flight to depart. However, I have been here since 8 a.m.

Originally, my flight to Tampa was to depart at 9 a.m. After I checked in, I saw on the monitor that my flight was delayed an hour. How could this be, five seconds ago I was at the ticketing kiosk and it said my flight was on time. I checked back in with the ticketing agent and we had an argument as to which was correct: her computer, that said the flight was ontime and in the air, or the departure monitors. We settled on her computers, but I was skeptical. You have to be skeptical flying out of Tallahassee airport. It is rare that your flight is on-time.

While in the gate area I discovered that the flight was delayed two hours now. I finally called Delta (P.S. I cannot stand Delta’s Customer service -future post). The lady I spoke with did not help at all. She just re-enforced that my flight was delayed and that I should just wait for my delayed flight.

I finally decided to stand in this incredibly long line of other Tampa passengers looking to rebook. I overheard a woman in front of me say that she had gotten on a 10 o’clock flight to Boston going through ATL. So I decided to call and try to rebook over the phone, and hopefully deal with another representative. This representative told me that he could get me on a 12 o’clock flight to BOS through ATL. That’s great! He transferred me to another person. And from there, I got lost and was never booked anywhere.

Still in line, I was left with being able to deal with someone who spoke English without any funny Asian accents. I was second in line now, I could see the finish line. Oh, no, the gate agent has to load his planes and get them off the ground–more delays. To top it off, there was this old Spanish woman behind me that kept stepping up to the counter to inquire about her Miami flight. The agent told her three times that it was leaving from this gate. Finally it was my turn, out jumps that lady. She was acting all stupid and lost her papers and blahblahblah, monopolizing my time. The agent then tells me that the lady at the other counter is actually rebooking Tampa passengers. Great, more queueing.

When I got to the other counter, the woman printed me out my boarding passes for my 12 o’clock flight to ATL. When I had spoke to the second phone representative, I was told that all flights to BOS out of ATL were booked. I am just glad to be on a flight out that gets into BOS before 10 p.m.

Now, hopefully my flights will not be delayed any further.