Adam’s plane was scheduled to leave Boston at 4:19 and arrive in Philadelphia at 5:46, where he would board a plane to Seattle scheduled to depart at 6:15. His plane actually left the gate in Boston at 4:57 and is now estimated to arrive in Philadelphia about nine minutes after his plane to Seattle is estimated to have left.
G. S. Kenney Author
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Ah, the Internet, generating whole new reasons to worry… I was pretty freaked out too when my plane from Boston was super-late, but as it happened, the plane from Philly (the last one that entire day, incidentally) was delayed enough that I was actually sitting inside it at the gate for another half hour or so before we started taxiing.
The cause of all this chaos? A massive USAir labor walkout.
They didn’t post the new estimated departure time for your connecting flight until you’d already been in the air for half an hour. So by that time, I figured you could have: been rerouted via Denver, where there were still two more connecting flights that night to Seattle; been stuck in Philadelphia, where they would either have to put you up in some airport hotel for the night, or where you would be trying to sleep in one of those uncomfortable seats near the gate; or found (as it did happen) that your connecting flight was also delayed at the last minute.
They told us fans observing over the Internet that the problem was in getting the equipment to the gate due to delays in an earlier flight. Nothing at all about *labor*.
I’m glad you got home okay, albeit late.
Well, yes, the problem *was* in getting the equipment to the gate on time. Because they had to scramble to throw together a skeleton crew to fly it there when almost their entire workforce walked out.
Huh… and that’s also not the line they’re giving in the news: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/26/airlines.us.reut/index.html
The truth will out…
Indeed: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=361737