roy

hello, all. i am updating from a public terminal - it is the first keyboard i've ever used with payphone-like keys. it is nearly impossible to type on this.

long story short: flew out of ATL to connect in PHX to SAN via us airways. an hour into the flight, the pilot diverted us to land in memphis due to plane troubles. it didn't seem so serious - we landed, they let us out (yay) and brought mechanics to fix the plane (they had to get northwest mechanics, as this is not a us airways hub). after about an hour, they had "fixed" the probem, and said we were ten mins away from reboarding.

i called my sis, and i was sure i could catch the 8pm from PHX to SAN. all cool. 

20 minutes later, they said that during the startup sequence, the engine failed to start up. oopsie daisies. so they'd have to fly in a new plane from PHX (est departure: 7pm local). being that memphis is a delta/northwest hub, us airway only had a skeleton CSR reps here - sucks to be them (a plane full of angry people descend on them from nowhere!). it also made taking alt flights out impossible (i think they only had two flights today or something after we landed)

went to dinner (meal voucher, yay!), came back. now the flight's pushed back to 9pm. a little while later ...945pm. defintely not making it home tonight. (i am now out of clean clothes)

(a little while ago, they warned us that the "airport closes at 7pm so use the bathrooms before then... lulz!)

thankfully, they offered hotels to everybody, so that's not a huge worry. although if i had known at 3pm this was going to happen, i would have taken their memphis hotel offer and enjoyed beale st. alas.

so this trip had two first for me: missed flight (my bad) and bad plane (their bad). but you know what? in an impossible situation, the CSR reps did pretty good, and i'm not pissed at us airways.

not like delta, at least.

hopefully, i can get on a plane at 930 tonight - they have an early flight to SAN from PHX at 745 am ... lets hope no more hiccups!