Saturday, April 14, 2007

Post-Airport Gridlock Blogging

I just flew in from the East Coast and not only are my arms tired, but the rest of me is tired, too. I went through Dallas-Fort Worth airport (DFW) which was a mess because of the hailstorm and tornado that went through the area. I finally landed in San Diego at 2AM this morning and got home at 2:30. Our Maximum Leader decided to pluck the carpet and demand attention at 4AM and then a smoke alarm in our house had to tell me it's battery was dead at 6AM.

Thank you, all.

The scene at DFW was predictably crazy. Flights were out on the runway when a brief, golfball-sized hailstorm swept through. Every plane had to be inspected for hailstorm damage before they could take off. That took hours. Some planes had dings and had to come back to the gates. When they came back to the gates, they filled them for the planes that were landing, so massive airplane gridlock set in. During the wait, some of the cockpit crews went past their legal limit of hours in the plane (written into law to prevent tired crews from flying) and couldn't fly any more leaving some planes without crews, sitting at the gate.

Meanwhile, more planes continued to land. One of them was mine. We got in line for a gate waiting for someone to take off and free up a spot for us. When we got in, the line was eight planes deep. We sat on the taxiway for more than half an hour waiting for a spot to free up.

Once we got off, the scene inside the terminal was chaotic. Apparently there was a NASCAR event in the area and the cancelled flights from planes that got damaged quickly sopped up all excess capacity in the hotels. Families with little kids were stranded in the airport with nowhere to spend the night. Plenty of people were angry and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

One black guy in particular was telling everyone around him in loud tones just how American Airlines had screwed up. Comparatively speaking, he didn't have much to complain about as he was middle aged and without kids. I guess he and the rest of the angry people didn't realize just what it meant to fly on the safest air travel system in the world. They might be a little angrier as they slammed into a mountainside because the planes they were flying were unsafe.

Well, they'd be angry briefly. Then they'd be dead.

Despite all the chaos and the angry people, everyone still formed organized lines and waited for gate agents to help them out. Unfortunately, most of the gate agents had gone home. By this time it was past midnight. This is the only thing where I find fault the airlines. Our flight was delayed for 30 minutes while American scrambled to find a gate agent. I would think that they ought to be able to work out a clause in the contract with the union where the agents could be given double pay to hang around during emergencies.

Our flight attendant crew was great. When they realized what the problem was, they quickly got organized. Some of them ran off to get a gate agent, others shanghaied one exhausted, bedraggled gate agent as he walked by to get the process going. The gate agent that finally showed up had run through most of the airport to get to us and was gasping as she called for us to board.

So now I'm home, safe and sound with a story to tell. A little tired, maybe, but what's so bad about that?

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