For those who haven't noticed, I've been light on blogging this past week. I was out in the Caribbean on a 7-day cruise and got back into the NYC metro area last night. The trip was great, but getting back was an absolute mess because of the Nor'easter that we're experiencing in the NYC metro area and throughout the entire Eastern United States as the storm dumped snow from Alabama and Georgia all the way up through to Maine. More than 50 million people are being affected directly by the storm, and many areas will see more than 10 inches of snow before all is said and done.
It's a pretty bad storm no matter how you look at it and yet, it wasn't the weather in NYC that made travel so horrible yesterday. It was the mess in Atlanta, which was hit by the storm before it hit the East Coast. It may have been fun for some, but to the airlines, and Delta Airlines in particular, it was a disaster.
Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed because they couldn't deal with the snow at the airport or to get equipment to the right place.
Normally, I would try to schedule direct flights between New York and our destination and for the return flights, but because I was using Skymiles, I got a connecting flight through Atlanta on our way back to Newark.
When we got to the airport from the cruise ship at 9AM, the airport was already a madhouse because Delta Airlines was having a meltdown. They were canceling flights left and right and people were scrambling to find alternatives. The line at the Delta ticket counter was winding through the airport and there were no representatives to direct people what to do. The situation was also bad at some of the other counters, including Northwest and Southwest, but Delta was having the worst of it. It was like that for hours. We were waiting on line with no guidance and no instructions.
The folks in the line were all well behaved and were quite helpful to each other, giving what little tidbits of information to each other. Phone lines to Delta's reservations line were useless as they were jammed and all you got were busy signals - and that situation remains unresolved even today. It didn't matter if you were a Skymiles member or not - you couldn't get through under any of the phone numbers except the flight information line - and there were significant waits for that too.
After three hours of waiting on line and still no closer to the counter, I made my way over to the jetBlue desk, and attempted to get tickets. I finally managed to get two tickets on a direct flight to JFK (our car was, and still is, at Newark), but it was a steep price to get back to NYC. The two tickets were $640, and we still had to deal with Delta. That was at 1PM. The new flight was scheduled for 6:32PM.
Oh, and there was no guarantee that the jetBlue flight would happen since there were weather delays and cancellations popping up all over the East Coast because of the storm that was now hitting all over the place.
Delta finally sent some people out into the crowd to provide additional phone numbers - all busy of course - but also that they shouldn't bother to stay on line since they wouldn't get any other information than what was being provided at the ticket counter. To say that this was not helpful was an understatement.
Still, it was a highlight of the day when a contingent of US Marines lugging what looked like 200 pounds of gear and bags entered the ticket area and attempted to get through the crowd to secure their own ticketing. Some of the Marines had bags and packs that were bigger than they were. The crowd parted easily and spontaneous clapping erupted as they made their way back and forth through the area. They were on their way to Camp Pendelton, but had to fly through Atlanta.
I would keep checking back with the Delta counter to see if the line slackened any, but that never happened. The line looked like it was a consistent two to three hour wait, and we were hearing that the earliest flights back to the NY metro area would be Tuesday at the earliest. That was completely unacceptable so I figured that I would deal with Delta when I got back to NY.
We kept a wary eye on the arrival/departures status boards, as we saw cancellations and delays mount. A delay on an inbound flight from Boston would mean delays on outbound flights from Tampa, and the domino effect was truly in play. Flights in and out of Newark, LGA, and JFK were being canceled or delayed. Our own flight ended up showing a delay because our plane was coming from Boston, where they got an early taste of the storm and that meant that our flight to NY was not expected to leave Tampa until 7:10PM.
The airport has some shops and a couple of restaurants so we made use of both - having lunch and wandering the airport terminal for amusement and to stretch our legs. Many other folks were in the same boat, although some gave up trying to fly out yesterday and instead looked to find a room for the night either at the Marriott on the airport property or at off airport locations.
Well, the folks at the jetBlue counter couldn't be any nicer and helpful and were able to get us on that flight and keep us informed. The Boston flight did get in late, but the jetBlue staff turned the plane around in literally 20 minutes time. They were deplaning the passengers through both the front and rear of the plane, checking it out, cleaning, and restocking it in minutes. We actually boarded the plane and pulled back from the gate at 7PM. It was still 20 minutes later than the originally scheduled time, but earlier than anticipated.
The plane was absolutely packed to the gills because people were scrambling to get back home. We finally touched down at just about 9PM. That's right - we made the trip in nearly 2 hours flat. Apparently we got a 50mph tailwind and were flying most of the trip at over 630mph. The ride wasn't too bumpy either although we did get a few thunderstorm displays out the window.
Touchdown in NYC was uneventful even though the runways and taxiways were wet and starting to slush up at the margins. We disembarked from the plane without a hitch although it took quite a bit longer to get our bags than we hoped. My brother got us from the airport and drove us home, which meant the world to us given the day we had.
Thousands of other passengers were in a similar situation yesterday and today because of the storm. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, and the problems aren't expected to ease for a couple of days. Meanwhile, while I can't say I'm glad to be home to shovel snow and deal with the storm, it is nice to be home.
And I finally managed to get through to a Delta rep today and they credited my account for the unused Skymiles. It's a start.
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