Some of you may already know that my planned Florida trip sort of collapsed last week. After days of adjusting my schedule to Eastern Time, I got up at 5:30 AM Thursday and went to the airport about 2 hours later…only to be told that there had already been four flights cancelled, and the flight I was scheduled on was so hopelessly overbooked I immediately sat down and picked a backup route. When it looked like I’d be booted from that one as well I went to the website and tried to find another route, but there was simply no way; nearly every flight out of Seattle or into any of the major airports in Florida was hopelessly overbooked, often by as many as 8 or 9 seats. And the few exceptions out of Seattle or into Florida didn’t match up. So, I texted with Alex Andrews of SWOP Behind Bars and we decided the most sensible course of action was for me to stay put and appear by video; though the video link didn’t work out staying put turned out to be a good idea, because the flight they automatically rolled me over to (which would’ve been a redeye departing at 10 PM) was cancelled a few hours later. I don’t know what was going on, but it affected multiple airlines and multiple airports; summer travel is always bad, but this was absurd. I’m hoping nobody wants to go to Washington DC in August, so I don’t have this trouble when it comes time for Woodhull…but all the same, I think I’ll go a couple of days early to be sure.
Diary #469
June 25, 2019 by Maggie McNeill
We missed you in Orlando, Maggie, though Alex did a great job and the film is excellent. I’m never happy to have to go to Orlando, but I’m glad I did, though I was looking forward to seeing you again. I think people in the audience learned a lot from the film and the discussion that followed.
With the current 737 Max issues and a big part of the fleet down, air travel has become an even bigger mess than it was already. I’m not sure why anyone would want to go to DC in August, but they will, so I hope things go better for you on that and other future trips.