Fortunately, I have learned to leave plenty of extra time when I travel.
We caught the shuttle with no problems but then, not surprisingly, traffic to Atlanta was backed up because of two different accidents. The shuttle wound up arriving at the airport an hour late, which caused some of the other passengers concern, but was okay for us.
Security was no problem, thank heavens. We boarded the flight on time and they shut the boarding door, preparing for an on-time departure.
Then they reopened the boarding door. This is generally not a good sign.
The captain came on to announce that they were having some maintenance issues in one of the forward galleys. Then he came back on to say that the maintenance issue was a short in one of the warmers which had given the flight attendant a “rather severe shock” and they would have to replace her.
She walked off under her own power, accompanied by two paramedics, but looked a little pale.
Sadly, her lack of grounding meant that we were grounded. At least until they got that fixed and got a new flight attendant in.
Apparently this was complicated because of the snow in the northeast, which meant that a light of flight crews were also stranded. The pilot said, “Frankly, I’m not sure they even know where everyone is right now.”
During the next hour and a half, the crew was attentive. They even pulled a couple people off the flight who were obviously going to miss their connections and rebooked them from Atlanta. We also got random influxes of other passengers, which I suppose were people who were being rebooked themselves.
We got home an hour and a half late, but with our luggage and health intact, so I really can’t complain.
But for those who were wondering if Rob cancelled out my travel karma, I have to say… no. No, he doesn’t.
