Joel Payne
Email flyplayne@bellsouth.net
Issue Area - Non Rev
Comments - This may be similar to Mark's last trip, with a
few twists.
To celebrate the wife's birthday, I took her to Cape Breton,
NS. We flew JAX-LGA-YHZ [Halifax] on Aug. 29th. As in Mark's case, there was no
problem getting there. Things started going downhill on the return. The only
DAL flights into or out of YHZ are Delta connection carriers. 2 from YHZ-LGA and 1 to DTW. We opted for the 1314 flight to LGA on Sept.
4th. We checked in for the return flight about 2 hours before scheduled
departure on Sept. 4th. Got our seat assignments right then and there. Flight
was scheduled out at 1314. We then went through security, immigration and
customs and proceeded to the gate. We only had a 50 minute connection in LGA
for our 1600 flight to JAX. Things started to snowball when it was announced
that the inbound flight would be 45 minutes late due to weather in LGA. Maybe
this is the same weather system that caught Mark. After departure, we sat on
the taxiway at YHX for another 45 minutes. There went our LGA connection.
My backup plan was to go LGA-ATL-JAX. WRONG!! On arrival at
LGA, we sat for another 1/2 hour waiting for a gate. Inside the terminal was
utter chaos. Most of the ATL flights were canceled. 100's of folks standing in
line at the information desks. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that
there was another nonstop to JAX at 1920. Found an empty gate with an agent
hanging out. After showing my retiree ID, I asked if there was a chance she
could re-list us. 60 seconds later it was done. She even mentioned there were
70+ empty seats. Of course the 1920 flight left promptly at 2220. At least we
arrived safely home, even if 6 hours late. I sent an open letter to DAL
commending the agents at both YHZ and LGA. All of them were a pleasure to deal
with. I didn't hear a cross word from any of them. The agent in YHZ even held
onto the cell phone that the wife had left on the inbound flight and returned
it to the gate before we left. But that's another story.
Joel Payne
B-767A [ret].
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