I left Clemson a week ago for a whirlwind trip through Memphis, Little Rock, Hot Springs and New Orleans. Atlanta was completely fogged at 10 in the morning. I went to the computer to check in and it could not find my reservation, the agent told me to go over and stand in line so that a desk agent could assist me. The line was pretty long and three people were working at the desk, yet six people were helping at the electronic check-in station, and no passengers were over there. I find that odd and a little inefficient during a weather day.
My reservation was located and I was informed my 12:00 flight was canceled and now I was on a 2:30 flight. My sister was supposed to pick me up in Little Rock so we could drive to Memphis for the weekend. As I waited, she came up with the idea that I try to switch flights and take a direct to Memphis so she could leave. I asked the gate agent whether it was possible, and she told me yes, although I'd have to go wait in the line down the hall, which was extremely long. If you haven't flown recently Delta has a new system of automatically re-booking you if your flight is canceled. They will scan your boarding pass and a new itinerary with a boarding with print in the form of a receipt. If that doesn't work you stay in line and pick up one of the black phones or call an 800 number and another person will assist you. Then you wait in line again until your new boarding pass prints, a semi-effective system.
Also, a public service announcement, if your flight is canceled due to weather related issues and you have to stay overnight, you will not be put up in a hotel. Delta will only give you a hotel voucher if your flight is canceled for mechanical reasons, good to know. So back to my story.
I finally get to the agents scanning boarding passes and I tell one of them I do not need mine scanned but needed to be re-booked on a flight to Memphis. She said they couldn't do it because it is a security risk of my luggage flying on a different airplane than me. I said I wanted my bag switched as well, and she said no. I said well people fly all the time without their bags because you lose them. Slipped out, Ooops :)! So then I turned around and grabbed one of those cards with the 800 number on it and stayed in line. I told the agent my ride had left and I need to get to Memphis, she was gone a while and then came back and said she tried to do it but couldn't because it was outside the 100 mile radius from the airport I was supposed to land out. I said how far, she said it was 130 miles, seriously. Since I was already in line, I decided to stay in line and wait to see someone at the desk, third time is the charm right. I put on my best sad face and asked really nicely for her to switch me since my initial flight was canceled. SUCCESS, I was on the Memphis flight, and she said my baggage would be switched!! I'll believe that when the bag arrives on the belt.
That flight was delayed multiple times as well, then we finally got on the plane. The captain said there was good news and bad news, we were on the flight but fuse wasn't working and they needed to get one from the hangar. It would be about 20 minutes and then they would turn off all the power to fix it and the emergency lights would come on. He said it was a great opportunity for us to see what a plane would look like if it actually lost power. Yeah, I think I'd rather not experience that up in the air, but thank you for the educational lesson. They replaced the part and the captain said, the good news is we replaced the part, the bad news is it was not the problem. We all had to deplane while they looked for another plane for us.
The pilot came up and made an announcement that nobody heard. Someone informed him that would couldn't hear so he came over to where we were sitting. He said they are still looking for another plane, but they have located a replacement part somewhere an hour or so away and they were bringing it, so we would at least be able to take off at 9pm, remember I left Clemson at 8am. Then he said our other plan is to "canibalize" another plane for the part and then we could take off earlier. UMMM, there are so many things wrong with that statement, but if we are canibalizing a plane, making it unable to fly, why not just take that plane. Nobody asked me for my logic. The last option is what actually happened, we got back on our plane. The pilot made another announcement, "Our estimated flying time is one hour, but they give us a little leeway on that time so I'm gonna fly this thing like I stole it. We're going Mike speed tonight." The comic relief was most helpful at this point in the evening, it was about 8. So we safely arrive in Memphis and my bag did not come with me, shocker. Why the heck would someone on the tarmac receive a baggage transfer request and then take 15 minutes out of their day to go digging through the belly of a plane just to find one bag and then make sure it goes in the belly of the correct plane. Geeze, I was totally a security risk since my bag flew on a separate plane than I did.
So I wore the same clothes for 2 days. In three tries to get some information on the location of my bag, I was informed that Delta had contacted the delivery company and the driver was supposed to call me. Apparently either Delta lied or the game of telephone didn't work. The driver called alright, but he called to explain how sorry he was because two bags were tagged with the same number (by Delta) and he delivered it to the wrong hotel. He figured out the mistake and corrected it on his own, and said that he was never contacted by delta or the delivery office. Hmmm.