kfitz

Head-Spinning Shifts in Travel Plans

Actually, my head spins in a light breeze, at this point. But this was nonetheless annoying:

Remember that I took the red-eye to Houston to meet up with my parents, and that the three of us were then going to fly here (oh, yes, I’m here; my itinerary hasn’t changed) to Newark to meet up with my sister, so that the four of us could go on to Rome together? I got a call from my stepfather at 5.45 this morning, as I was sitting in the IAH President’s Club: their flight was delayed, and there was an enormous line at the ticket counter, so he didn’t have any more information than that. They already had a too-tight connection in Houston, so they told me to go on to Newark, and that they’d catch up with me here.

I had three hours to wait, though, and free wifi, so I scoped out the situation for them. Their flight was apparently delayed by an hour, from 7.00 am to 8.00 am. Stated reason? Mandatory crew rest. (Which does make me, right this moment, want to ask about the status of mandatory passenger rest, but I digress.) The delay would cause their flight to get into IAH 15 minutes after our flight to EWR had left, but there are two more IAH-EWR flights after that one that would still get them here in plenty of time for our flight to Rome.

My stepfather calls me back again about half an hour later, and tells me that they’re now driving to New Orleans, where they’ll hop a direct flight to EWR, and get in here forty-five minutes after me. Apparently the ticket agent had to work pretty hard even to make that happen — those two IAH-EWR flights must have been completely full, because apparently her initial solution to the problem was to put them on the same flight out tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Did I mention that the purpose of this trip is that it’s my mother’s 60th birthday present? And because apparently the airline’s schedule got screwed up last night, and the crew got into BTR too late, and now they must be forced to rest just a bit longer, she’s supposed to give up one-seventh of that trip?

Not bloody likely.

I shouldn’t have worried, though; my stepfather’s mighty hard to say no to. They should be here any minute, and then all will proceed as it ought.

So, now that I think about it, this was hardly a momentous shift. I guess the key point here, again, is me, lack of sleep, and a resulting state in which I’m even easier to confuse than usual.

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