Last year, my mom bought me a plane ticket to come home for Thanksgiving. I ended up not going for various reasons, but that plane ticket was still paid for and in my name. So, I had to use it before October and my mom invited me to come spend a while with them in Tucson. Justin had to stay behind and work, but I would get a nice, free vacation. Great, right?
Well, Wednesday, I got on a plane headed to Dallas where I had a one hour lay-over until I got on the flight to Tucson. The plane got to Dallas after about 1 1/2 hours, but then we circled the airport because of storms for another hour. The pilot then informed us that Dallas still wouldn't let us land and that we were running out of fuel. We had to fly and land at the Abilene, Texas airport and fill up and then fly back to Dallas. The fill-up was supposed to take 15 minutes, it took another hour. Then we circled Dallas AGAIN for another hour. Finally, after almost 6 hours in that plane, I got off. Of course, I had missed my connecting flight so I tried to get on another flight going to Tucson. I was 79th in the standby line!!!! Ridiculous. The next flight wasn't until noon the next day!! I tried to get them to put me up in the Airport Hotel, but they wouldn't. Then I tried to get them to give me a voucher for any other hotel, but they wouldn't do that either. As I was trying to figure out what to do, I saw (and later heard about) people finding a corner to get comfy for the night.
Luckily, I have the nicest friends in the world and my best friend from High School, Tiffany, lives 20 minutes away from the DFW airport. She picked me up and I stayed in her guest room. Her husband took me back to the airport the next morning - they were my guardian angels. That was, however, without my luggage because the flight where i was 79th in the standby line didn't have room for me, but had plenty of room for my luggage. So my clothes, hair stuff, personal items (i don't need to go into detail) where all in Tucson before I even left the DFW airport to spend the night with Tiffany. All I had was my book and my laptop, and my phone. Not very helpful- well, actually the phone was extremely helpful.
While waiting for the noon flight on Thursday I heard that a lot of those 79 people waiting in the standby line with me had needed to sleep in the airport because the airline wouldn't give them any accomodations. They did give them cots - if that helps.
Moral of the story - do not fly into DFW!!! also, DO NOT fly with AMERICAN AIRLINES!!!
However, I made it safely, even if I was angry and tired. The flights themselves were easy and I feel blessed that I am able to come visit my family.
I'll let you all know if anything interesting happens on my trip home.
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