Friday, August 1, 2008

Adventures with American Airlines

We left on vacation Thursday morning. Our scheduled trip was a 6:00 am flight from Tulsa to Dallas, followed by a 8:05 am flight to Knoxville, Tennessee for a few days in the Great Smokies & Asheville, North Carolina. So much for plans. We boarded the American Spirit flight in Dallas as planned only to find on taking our seats that there was no Air Conditioning. We sat a sweating while they worked on it. Then they decided to return to the terminal. After setting a while, they cancelled the flight. We had 8 in our party. They sent 2 (My daughter, Lindsey and her husband) on a flight to Cincinnati with connection to Knoxville. The rest of us were booked on a 1:00 pm flight to Chicago O'Hara. We got on our plane at 1:30 PM. We were supposed to be in Knoxville at 11:30 AM. We boarded this flight only to be delayed 1 more hour because of mechanical problems. Those were fixed and then learned that Chicago was closed because of Thunder storms. We landed in Chi-town at 4:00 pm. 5 of us got on a flight at 6:30pm and my son Nate got a 8:00 pm flight. When we reached our condo after 10:30 pm. 11 hours late. All of our journeys dealt with broken planes, late crews, and delays. Setting in the American Terminal in Chicago, flights cancelled or delayed were the rule.

The best line heard all day was the following: "Passengers on the flight to Omaha should note that the lavatories on the plane are out of service. If you need to go to the facilities, you should do so at once. We start boarding in one minute!" There was a mad rush of the people around us to the toilet. While they were gone, the flight was cancelled!

A trip to Knoxville from Tulsa takes 18 hours by car or 16 hours by American Airlines.

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