I’m still trying to gather my Vegas thoughts, so those should be online later this week.  In the meantime, I figured I’d go out of chronological order and talk about my arduous flight back from Vegas.  By no means is this going to be a rant against airlines.  Weather-related issues are beyond anyone’s control.  This is simply a recap of my day’s events on Sunday coming back from Vegas.

Normally I don’t use connecting flights.  Ever.  Unless it’s absolutely necessary.  Now that we’ve declared a War On Liquids, most people have to check in their luggage unless they decide to buy toiletries in the city they’re going to and then throwing them away upon their return.  So I had a choice of either checking in my baggage with all the liquids/gels/viscous substances I normally use or I could not bring any toiletries and just buy them when I got to Vegas.  The last thing I wanted to do was find a drug store when I go to town so I decided to check in the bags.  The flight to Vegas, via Dallas, went baggage-incident free.

My return trip was Las Vegas to Chicago to Atlanta.  The weather, as expected, in Vegas was sunny so there wasn’t a delay and the pilot estimated we might actually land at O’Hare a few minutes ahead of time but that we were racing to beat a storm there.  Two hours passed and the pilot makes the announcement that the storm has arrived in Chicago and we are in a holding pattern.  He then proceeds to mention that we are low on fuel and if we have to hold any longer than 50 minutes (which we did), we will have to divert the flight to Milwaukee.

The next set of sequences made us all lose a little bit of faith in the pilot.  A few minutes later he announced that O’Hare was now not accepting incoming flights so we will be diverted to Milwaukee.  A few minutes after that he said there was another change in plans and that we had a small window in which to land in Chicago which was good since we were getting low on fuel.  He said we would be on the ground in 25 minutes.  Another minute passed and he came back on the intercom and said “Correction.  It is actually an hour and 10 minutes until we land in Chicago.”  This is when we all started to look at each other and wonder how he could have been so wrong in his calculations.  On top of this, since he mentioned twice already how low on fuel we were, were his calculations off for that too and we’d have to make an emergency landing in Ames, Iowa or some remote place?

Five more minutes pass and he then announces that O’Hare once again is not allowing planes to land so we indeed are going to Milwaukee since we are low on fuel (why is he continuing to mention this?).  All of us by this point just want to land somewhere, anywhere.  We safely land in Milwaukee and stay on the tarmac while they refuel us for the 20 minute flight to O’Hare.  While refueling, the pilot came back on theintercom and, in funny moment of truth, said “We’re waiting to hear from O’Hare as to whether we will be able to land there.  To be honest, I have no idea what’s going on.”

While waiting in Milwaukee, we find out from a lady who sat across the aisle from me that she was just returning from a funeral for her bother, who died in an airplane crash.  Yeah, that’s not gonna help calm the nerves.  I think we might have been at that airport for about an hour (not bad for a diverted flight) and we finally are airborne again and land at O’Hare.

Here is where I got semi-lucky based on a few variables.  One was the fact that I was in the 10^th row which allowed me to get off the plane quicker than most.  As soon as I got off, I walked briskly to the Departures monitor to see if by chance by Chicago-Atlanta flight had also been delayed.  It indeed was but the status was blinking “Final Boarding”.  I was in section K, the plane was in L.  I’m not sure how security officers deal with people running through airports now but I alternated between running and walking briskly and got to the gate where my plane was.  The gate door was closed and it was the last flight out of Chicago to Atlanta for the evening.

Thankfully the gate agent called the plane and let me in right as they were getting ready to leave.  Since I’m still relatively new at my job, I didn’t want to be forced to take an additional day off work.  “Sure James, yeah, sure you missed your flight from Vegas.  A likely story, you hung-over, debauched cretin.”

Of course, there wasn't a chance in hell that my baggage was going to make the flight, which meant I’d have to go through the motions at Hartsfield and wait for my flight’s luggage to pass through, make sure it wasn’t there, and then report it missing.  45 minutes later I’m finally able to officially make my claim.  Thankfully I lost my luggage on the way back home and not on the way to a vacation destination.  They finally found my luggage and dropped it off at my house late last night, less than 24 hours after I had reported it missing.

A few notes about traveling during the War On Liquids phase our country is currently in.  Most people are now checking their baggage which allows for much faster boarding times.  The flip side to this is they still have to load it all and so our flight out of Atlanta was slightly delayed since we boarded the plane in less than 10 minutes.  In addition, since the flight from Vegas to Chicago didn’t give complimentary snacks, only purchasable snack boxes which contained scary stuff like beef logs, I didn’t eat for about 12 hours with the exception of the snack pack on the Chicago to Atlanta leg of the trip.  I ate that damn thing like a refugee.

What is today’s lesson?  Unless you don’t have a choice, don’t make a connecting flight especially if you have to check in luggage.  It’s not worth the price savings unless it’s several hundred dollars.  For a measly seventy dollar savings, my day blossomed from a 4 hour flight to a 12 hour ordeal.