NW Airline Travel Hell

Wednesday, December 26, 2007, Minneapolis airport, 9:00 PM

This entry doesn't fit my usual driveaway topic, but our trip from Roanoke, VA to Choteau, MT during Christmas vacation deserves some record. Our plan was to fly out of Roanoke on Christmas day at 4:07 PM and arrive Great Falls, MT via Detroit and Minneapolis, MN. This would have been the same flight sequence we took last year, which basically worked out fairly well. Not the case this time.

Our flight out of Roanoke was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Low staffing, and no more flights meant we couldn't get out on Christmas Day and we were rebooked for an early flight the next day leaving at 6:05 AM. We were comped a room in a nearby hotel, got up at 3:30 AM, and the flight left on time. However, this flight was to land in Detroit, which had icing fog and we were diverted to Flint, MI, where we were basically dumped with no way out. With the day after Christmas being one of the heaviest travel days, there literally were no seats available on any airline to get us out. So, at the time, it seemed we were stuck. They started busing passengers to Detroit, but we had been automatically booked on a flight for 3:30 PM, so I hung in there. Turned out that, after a lot of soul searching on whether I should take the bus, get a rental car, or wait, that two planes landed in Flint that had been diverted also. We were able to get seats on one and got back to Detroit.

I decided to just proceed straight to a gate showing a plane destined for Minneapolis since that was the hub we'd likely have to go through on NW to get to Great Falls. As luck would have it, the gate I chose was loading the plane that I'd previously been booked on, since it had been delayed also. I don't know why, but rather than putting us on standby, the agent ushered us on and we were quickly on our way to Minneapolis.

We arrived there by 1:45 PM, but the only flight out to GTF wasn't leaving until 9:36 PM. I wasn't able to find an alternative. So we waited. The 9:36 scheduled flight became 10:36.

Since we had over 8 hours to kill, I decided to continue working any angles I could find. I ended up outside of security at the ticket counter trying to find an alternative flight and/or get some complimentary food vouchers and tickets for the mechanical failure. After talking to a supervisor, I was given two free tickets and $50 in food vouchers.

Beth is keeping count, and we've now spent 24 hours in an airport. We've been a day and a half trying to get to Montana and still haven't quite made it. But I'm hanging in there. Its currently 9:45 PM and our flight is scheduled for 10:31.

We'll see.

Later......

We made it to Great Falls, but it was about 2:00 AM on Thursday. After finally boarding the plane around 10:45 PM, NW couldn't get the headcount, or weight, or something figured out, so we sat in the plane for an hour. Finally, after the runway we were lining up for closed, and having to move the plane to an open runway, the pilot just took off. Our luggage actually made it, the Dollar rental was closed but left a car for us to pick up in their parking area, and we made it to Choteau about 3:00 AM. We'd been up about 26 hours.

Cold New England

12/4/07

Always hate to have to head up I-81, expecially if it includes continuing through PA into New England. This trip involved taking a nice, small, bucket truck, a GMC C5500 from Altec in Daleville to Altec in Millbury, MA, a trip of about 650 miles. To complicate things, the weather was a bit dicey in PA with an Alberta Clipper coming across on Tuesday while I was driving thru the mountians into Scranton, and then PA, along with several other states got hit even harder on Weds. with a bigger clipper.

I traveld 500 + miles and ended up in Danbury, CT for the night. Always a guess on finding a motel where you can get a truck with a car in tow in and situated without having to back up, which means unhooking. It was cold up there, with several inches of snow in most locations.

I was on the road early Weds. morning to deliver in Millbury by 9:30 AM. When I called dispatch, they said they wanted me to do two short moves in MA/CT then they would try to get me a truck coming back south towards home. My deal had been that I would drop this truck and start back. I didn't have several days to stay out this time, but because I'm a nice guy I agreed to do these two short moves.


The first move involved going 14 miles to Westboro, MA and move a sizeable IHC 7400 tandum bucket truck from the electric utility to Altec in Millbury, where I had just dropped off. Got that done by about 12:30 and moved on to the International dealership in Worcester, MA, which is only 2 miles from the Altec drop, and picked up an IHC 4200 to go 75 miles to Berlin, CT (the states are very small, and crowded up there). I did that and delivered at a huge electric utility about 3:30 PM. Took a long time to find the drop point even after finding the utility. Lots of buildings, with no one in them to help.


The deal with dispatch was they would then try to find something headed south. "Try" is the key word, because they didn't have anything, which meant I would start back on a 650 mile deadhead - much too long and expensive for my taste. We agreed that I would head back towards Scranton and maybe something would come up in Plains, PA or Frederick, MD. I didn't make it to Scranton that night.

It turned out I had actually been lucky that they assigned me the two moves in MA/CT because the bad weather was going below MA, so I just missed it by not heading back on Weds. I hit some of the leftovers of the bad weather along about Millford, PA and I decided to stop at a Red Roof for the night. Sort of a mistake because it was too expensive for my taste and the desk staff couldn't speak enough english to figure out I needed to do my faxing, which resulted in several stops and a $13 faxing bill the next morning. There were several inches of snow on the ground and it was 11 degrees there on Thurs. morning.

Dispatch still couldn't find anything to help make it a paid deadhead back to VA, so I just kept coming. Saw several wrecks left over from the previous night's storm, but I made it safely back by about 4:00 PM.

As always, glad to be safely home and promising myself this time I was done for the rest of this year. But something always comes up. But I am getting in the Christmas and Montana spirit - Choteau December 25 through January 5.

And to all - Merry Christmas and good night!