{"id":2364,"date":"2014-01-06T09:11:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T00:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2014-01-06\/2364"},"modified":"2014-01-06T09:11:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T00:11:21","slug":"doh-got-to-the-airport-a-day-early-to-find-my-flight-delayed-four-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2014-01-06\/2364","title":{"rendered":"Doh! Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days."},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

Well, that's a bummer. The forecast was for some bad weather overnight,\nso I thought<\/span> I'd be smart and get a hotel<\/span> near the airport to avoid having\nto drive up tomorrow for a 2PM<\/span> flight out of Cleveland, but as soon as I\ngot<\/span> into my room at the hotel and checked tomorrow's flight, I found<\/span> out\nthat my flight for tomorrow (Monday) was canceled and reschedule for\nThursday(!), but that's only the domestic part... my flight back to Japan\nseems to have disappeared.<\/p>\n\n

My mom had just dropped me off, but I didn't<\/span> have a way<\/span> to contact her\nto come back and bring me back home, so I'm stuck here until after the\nweather clears. At least<\/span> I've got a nice<\/span> hotel to pass the time in. It's forecast<\/span> to be an actual -15°F \/ -26°C<\/span>\ntomorrow, with a windchill<\/span> of -40°F (which is also -40°C).<\/p>\n\n

I tried calling the airline (United Airlines), but they're\nunderstandably overloaded, and the phone system won't even let you wait on\nhold. I took the<\/span> shuttle to the airport thinking I'd talk to someone there,\nbut a chat<\/span> with a stranded<\/span> traveler in the shuttle convinced me not to\nbother, so I came<\/span> back to the hotel.<\/p>\n\n

I told the front desk that if they get full and someone's desperate\nenough to want to share a room,<\/span> the extra bed in my room is open. I hope no<\/span>\none needs it.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Update later in the evening<\/b><\/p>

Watching the radar, the line of approaching snow actually\nstarted to recede a bit,<\/span> delaying the worst of the problems, so my mom came\nto pick me up and now I'm at my folks' place again. I don't<\/span> know when I'll\nget out, but it's sure a lot<\/span> more relaxing to be here! I still<\/span> haven't been\nable to contact United Airlines, but saw on their web site that they'll\nwaive all fees and any fare increases for adjusted schedules, which is very nice.\nI'll see how things look tomorrow and go from there.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Update the next morning<\/b><\/p>

Cleveland has so far been spared the\nworst of the snow, and some flights are getting out. If one believes<\/span>\nUnited's web site (which one should not necessarily\ndo<\/a>), half the flights from Cleveland to Chicago have long waitlists, and half have no waitlist. Seems unlikely.<\/p>\n\n

I did find my transpacific return to Kyoto in United's online system...\naccording to my current reservation as shown on United.com, they have me\nflying into Milwaukee on Thursday and then leaving for Japan, uh, the day\nbefore. Not sure how<\/span> that's supposed to work.<\/p>\n\n

The whole point of stopping by Milwaukee on the way home is to see my\ndear friend and best man at my wedding Ram Kulkarni<\/a>, so I've been\ntrying to find a way<\/span> to get to Milwaukee or Chicago today, but United.com's\nsystem says that I have<\/span> to actually talk to an agent to update my\nreservation, and when I call,<\/span> after playing phone-menu hide-and-seek for a\nminute<\/span> or so I'm so far invariably met with “<\/span>I'd like to transfer you\nto an agent who can assist you, but unfortunately, due to high call\nvolumes, all our agents are currently busy. Please call us back at a later<\/span>\ntime. Goodbye.<\/i><\/a>”<\/span> (Click the link to hear to audio. The intonation<\/span> of\nthe final “<\/span>goodbye”<\/span> is somehow teasing, as if daring<\/i> me to waste\nmore time.)<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Update the second morning after<\/b><\/p>\n\n

I tried first thing this morning, and actually got onto the hold queue. A moment<\/span> after the on-hold music started, there was a quick<\/span> and quiet\nadditional message: “<\/span>your hold time will exceed sixty minutes”<\/span>. Doh! I appreciate<\/span> being told. I'll try again later.<\/p>\n\n

I eventually did get through:\nContinued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that's a bummer. The forecast was for some bad weather overnight, so I thought I'd be smart and get a hotel near the airport to avoid having to drive up tomorrow for a 2PM flight out of Cleveland, but as soon as I got into my room at the hotel and checked tomorrow's flight, I found out that my flight for tomorrow (Monday) was canceled and reschedule for Thursday(!), but that's only the domestic part... my flight back to Japan seems to have disappeared.<\/p>

My mom had just dropped me off, but I didn't have a way to contact [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}