Always an adventure

I somehow always end up with great flying stories. So here it begins (I'm writing this on my blackberry at 20,000+ feet.)

I was scheduled to leave Dulles at 8:30pm, arrive in Atlanta at 10:30pm, and leave for Memphis at 11pm. During the day, I checked the flights, only to find that my 8:30 departure had already been pushed back to 9:30. However, the prior flight was also delayed, and scheduled to leave at 8pm.

I called up airtran and had them rebook me for the earlier flight. I decided to arrive early, which was good, because the plane left about 7:30pm. At the exact time we took off, though, a line of thunderstorms was making its way to Atlanta and up the east coast. The entire flight was very turbulent.

Coming in to atlanta, we were getting beat around, and the pilot had to plow the plane into the runway so as not to get blown off. Pretty nuts-o. Oh, and the normally hour and a half flight ended up as two and a half. I saw a picture of the radar after we had landed, and it looks like we landed right as the worst of it hit Atlanta. Great timing.

But the fun had just begun. I walk into the terminal to find that my flight to Memphis wasn't scheduled to leave until 12:30am (it was 10:15pm at the time). I called up my dad (who used to work for delta) and had him check out the remaining delta flights to Memphis. Sure enough, there was one flight left.

So, I headed to the next concourse over and asked the gate agent to help me out. He couldn't at first, thinking there weren't any extra seats. But, after waiting a bit, he hooked me up and I got on the delta flight (we backed out of the gate at 11:30pm). It took us 35 minutes to get off the ground, due to heavy traffic, so I can only imagine how late the airtran flight will be leaving.

I'm still in the air, so who knows when I'll get to Memphis, much less millington. But the good news is, I'm on my way. And the moral of the story is: it doesn't hurt to ask. For all I know, I may have never even left Washington if I hadn't rebooked that first flight....
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry