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Ghery

Ghery

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
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Olympia, Washington
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Display name:
Ghery Pettit
This quick trip I bought tickets on jetBlue for the first time. Came down from SEA to LGB yesterday and things were fine. Gave my presentation at a symposium this morning and came back to the airport for my 6:10 pm flight home.

Well, that was the plan, anyway. Got here and was told the flight had been delayed to 8:20 pm. I just saw it has been delayed again to 9:22 pm. I don't know what started the problem, but the airplane I'm supposed to ride is sitting here right now. Of course, it has to make a round trip to SLC before it can be used for the flight to SEA. Good grief. Is this typical for jetBlue? UA doesn't serve LGB, so they weren't an option for this trip. No wonder B6 was the low price on Expedia.

Thanks for letting me vent. A C-172 would have been faster today.
 
Was not just a Jet Blue problem. Denver was completely shut down yesterday due to weather and it fubared the whole system. I had associated stranded in NY yesterday due to cancellations and delays on Southwest, United and American.
 
Shawn said:
Was not just a Jet Blue problem. Denver was completely shut down yesterday due to weather and it fubared the whole system. I had associated stranded in NY yesterday due to cancellations and delays on Southwest, United and American.
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Yeah last time I heard, the cancelled 1200 flights.

It's nice out today though.

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The Denver weather reminded me of one of my annual April pilgrimages there.... Gorgeous weather on arrival and the days during the conference. But the final hours the event on Saturday saw a blizzard arrive and bury the city. Airport sas shut down for two days.

Sunday evening, AAL finally got around to calling me to discuss options of flying home. Best they could offer was Wednesday, but that was iffy. Dad and I couldn't stay way from the business that long, so we had the hotel find someone to drive us to a rent car agency where we got a car and drove from KDEN to KDFW in shifts, stopping only for food, coffee, relief stations.

Best part of that road trip was the face of the cop who stopped me for speeding at 11:00pm, 5 miles from DFW, driving what is now a very dirty car with Colorado plates as he tried to figure out my DL showing I lived close to where he stopped me and why I was in Denver just 12 hours earlier.


Here's wishing you get home safely and eventually, @Ghery
 
Ghery said:
. I don't know what started the problem, but the airplane I'm supposed to ride is sitting here right now. Of course, it has to make a round trip to SLC before it can be used for the flight to SEA. Good grief. Is this typical for jetBlue? UA doesn't serve LGB, so they weren't an option for this trip.
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Regionals are sometimes better at handling this then the mainline guys. They run typically with a smaller number of hubs, which leave a high number of unused tails for that time period. If Express has a tail with large delays, the company will try to swap out a few flights with a tail that isn't being used.

I've started my day with the plan of sticking with the same tail all day. However, by my second or third leg I'm sitting on a another one. Someone or something screwed the system earlier in the day and the swap is the outcome. Unfortunately, sometimes there isn't an aircraft to swap a delayed flight into. So you get stuck watching your plane leave and come back before your flight.

For some reason UA or Express has increased the block times for each flight so much that I can have a flight to its destination an hour early. This really helps if we get super delayed in the morning. I've been able to cut a two hour delay down to under 15 be the end of the day. To do this we will disregard the ECO index and fly at our max cruise.
 
Lufthansa sent their 747 to Detroit. I'm sure the passengers *loved* that. Ha.
 
It sounds like they had a maintenance problem with this particular airplane early in the day and it delayed every flight using it after that. Oh well, I ran into some former Intel colleagues in the restaurant who were on the same flight and we had a great time catching up on what happened to each of us since last June. So, it wasn't a total loss. I'm on the flight to SEA right now.
 
I heard Frontier divert to Austin...

We couldn't get back into KAPA. They kept delaying the reopening. First 1500 then 1700, then 1930, at which point we gave up since we wouldn't have been able to drive home anyway. The flight home early yesterday morning was beautiful. But then we had a pop-up due to the fact the airlines were all screwed up. No surprise there.
 
I don't do any flying for business, which is a whole different critter. But my wife and I fly back and forth between Iowa and Puerto Rico several times a year, which would be a heck of a trip by a private plane. But we have found ourselves in a position in our lives where we would welcome a bump. Not layovers so much, but layovers aren't that bad, when you aren't trying to get somewhere for something. But we are poised and ready if we can get bumped and we can get something out of it, especially at either end, as we would just go home and come back. We carry enough stuff in our carry on to get us through the night. We usually fly through Atlanta, and I would take a bump there. I mean, they have nice hotels in Atlanta. But as fate has it, we never get bumped. When they ask for volunteers and we leap to our feet without even a word and run up to get on the list, then we always make the flight. Anyway, that is just the ramblings of an old man.

One more story though. One year we flew with our son out to Winter Park, Colorado to go skiing between Christmas and New Year. So we got snowed in, and couldn't get out of Winter Park. But our flight got cancelled as well. We finally got to Denver airport on New Year's eve. My son was starting to really wear on us, as he had plans for New Year's eve, and things weren't going his way. Wa wa wa wa. So we were on standby, because they were backed up, and I told the guy at the desk that if he had just one seat, not to give it to someone else just because there were three of us. I told him to take my kid and get him out of there, and the whole world would be a happier place. So, sure enough, my son made the flight, and my wife and I went to a hotel. That was the best night of the whole trip, in my opinion.
 
B6 is a LCC. That's why it was cheap. They're usually as good if not better than UA, AA, and DL
 
ktup-flyer said:
B6 is a LCC. That's why it was cheap. They're usually as good if not better than UA, AA, and DL
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For a short trip I'm fine with B6. This trip was the first time I'd ridden them. Fortunately, it was just an overnight trip for me, so I didn't need to check a bag (and pay for the "service"). However, for a long trip I'll stick with UA. Million miler, so E+ seating at a minimum is free. Plus I can check 2 bags for no fee. For a short trip I'll look at B6 again. Even the "cheap seats" had adequate leg room.

Oh, and we got into SEA about 3 1/2 hours late. I finally got home just after 2 am.
 
Ghery said:
For a short trip I'm fine with B6. This trip was the first time I'd ridden them. Fortunately, it was just an overnight trip for me, so I didn't need to check a bag (and pay for the "service"). However, for a long trip I'll stick with UA. Million miler, so E+ seating at a minimum is free. Plus I can check 2 bags for no fee. For a short trip I'll look at B6 again. Even the "cheap seats" had adequate leg room.

Oh, and we got into SEA about 3 1/2 hours late. I finally got home just after 2 am.
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Their seats have more leg room than any of the big 3 airlines Y seats. I want to tryout their "Mint" offering. Looks great for the price.
 
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