May 31st, 2006 @ 1:20 pm
Layover
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - LaGuardia Airport
Sort of an update on my trip to FL
I flew out of Rochester, to LaGuardia airport in NYC (there will be pictures of NYC from the air eventually). After my layover in LaGuardia, we were supposed to take off at 6pm for Phily, where I would get a connection to Ft Myers FL.
There was maintenance required on the plane, so we were 30 minutes late boarding. By the time we got the plane boarded and were taxing to take off, they put a ground stop on for Philly airport, meaning we could not take off for there. If we had already been in the air, we would have been able to land of course, but no new planes were allowed to leave for philly. I wasn’t really worried because I wasn’t in that big of a rush, but some people were getting really pissed off on the plane. My connection was set to takeoff at 7:55, and it was creeping closer and closer to that time. At about 7:30 they canceled the ground stop, then we had to wait another 25-30 minutes for planes ahead of us in line to takeoff. I was barely in the air when my connection flight was scheduled for takeoff.
When we got to Philly I check the flight monitor things, and my plane had left, probably on time. We then learned that the reason there was a ground stop was because president Bush had been at the airport or something, and they decided to close it for security reasons.
Since the plane was late due to maintanence, not the president, US Airways paid for me to spend the night in a Ramada, and I had a ticket for a flight out on Thursday at 11:50am. The guy at the service desk told me there was another flight leaving for Fort Myers at 7:55 AM and that I could try to fly standby on that one if I wanted. I got up at 5:30, showered and took the bus to the airport, getting through security at about 7AM, but I couldn’t find my flight. After being told to go from B terminal to C terminal and back several times, and having 3 more standby tickets printed out for me, I realized that the flight wasnt for 7:55AM, but 7:55PM.
So I wasted sleep, precious sleep, to be at the airport to fly standby on a flight that wasn’t even leaving until after my scheduled flight was long at the destination. I did manage to find another flight at 9:50AM that I attempted to fly standby on, but by the time I figured out that flight, I was the second person flying standby. It turned out that the first person got on the plane, and there was no room for me. I talked to a different service desk, and did manage to get a $5 food voucher, which was nice and I bought some lunch before my 11:50 flight
So…
Because of George Bush I missed my connection and instead of it taking 11 hours to get from Rochester NY to Fort Myers FL, it took 23 hours; longer than it would have taken to drive!
