My first airline ride was in 1964. I rode several genav airplanes before that, and even jumped out of a few, but never before had I ridden an airline. Since then the airlines have taken me from coast to coast, border to border, from Hawaii to Alaska and a few foreign countries.
In my mind, I had seen it all. Wrong.
Recently wife Gail and I got up early in Boston, drove to Hartford, and flew back home to TN. At six that morning—before we had even left the motel in Boston---Delta called with a recorded message. Our 10 a.m. flight from Hartford was canceled and we had been rebooked on a 1 p.m. flight. No big surprise there, it messed up our schedule, but, hey, stuff happens, you know?
The big surprise came at Hartford.
We got the new booking all straightened out, then learned from the schedule board that our original flight was scheduled to leave on time, at 10 a.m. We asked the man at the counter and he was—shall we say—far less than interested, much less helpful.
We got to the gate of the new flight very early, and guess what—our original flight was leaving right on time at the very next gate. We tried to get on, but no dice. It was full.
We gave up, went back to the new gate and unloaded on the gate agent, Tim Williams. Now Tim was a class act. He went far out of his way to bend over backward and make up for the mess. He almost made us happy.
The next day I called Delta’s media department and got a super-nice lady. I wrote her name down but cannot now find it. I apologize.
She found the truth and relayed it. Delta had indeed called us to announce that the flight was canceled. Then they found a substitute airplane, so the flight was back on. Unfortunately, Delta failed to recontact us with that info. By the time I hung up, this lady almost had me in a good mood again.
Still, we got home very late that day through no fault of our own. And to paraphrase Brother Dave Gardner, that, dear hearts, is the reason that we, and thousands like us, now drive far more often than we used to.
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