I flew from PHX to Des Moines for work. Only direct flight was sold-out. Next best option? PHX-Denver-Des Moines. Sold out. OK, how about PHX-Minneapolis-Des Moines? Good to go. Only bad thing was the flight home. Only way was Des Moines to Detroit then Detroit to PHX. Ugh. So the flight there was uneventful. Flight back? Started off at the airport. Flight was supposed to be for 10:15am. Delayed to 10:30am. Fine. 10:30am comes and goes. “Technical problem” and the sign changes from “Delayed” to “On time 11am.” Then it changes to “On time 11:30am.” Then it changes to “On time 12pm.” OK Delta! You’re not fooling anyone!!!
So finally at 12:15pm they cancel the flight. Next best option is to try to hop on the 1:45pm flight to Detroit which means I miss my connection home. The senile woman at the gate keeps starting to say something and then stops and says, “I lost my train of thought” and then she’d have to start again. Again and again as she tries to rebook people. She’s lost and tries to put me on a flight home with mis-matched connections. How can I catch a 5:45pm flight from Detroit to PHX if I don’t land in Detroit until 6:05pm? I went to another gate and was extremely nice to the other agent and asked if she could help me. Wow. She put me on the Minneapolis flight I wanted and then a Minneapolis-PHX flight that gets me home at the same time as the Detroit flight would’ve. OK, awesome. I thank her profusely.
I get to Minneapolis and go to the counter to get my boarding pass. Nothing but 1 middle seat left on a full flight. I make a joke and say, “I’ve got a crisp one dollar bill if you can get me a window seat” and then laugh as I get resigned to my fate of 3.5 hours in a middle seat. They give me my middle seat and I take off. Then the gods came and smiled upon me. They called me up there and said, “There was a mistake, you were supposed to get this seat, 4a.” 4a is a window first class. Once you’re boarded in 1st class and have your seat, you don’t care about runway delays, or “We need to have our plane de-iced.” Nice.
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Nice story.