Delays

Sleep-over at DFW! You bring the s’mores.

Delays, Safety,

American Airlines canceled another 500 flights on Tuesday to check a wiring issue on their fleet of MD-80 airplanes. 193 of those canceled flights were scheduled to depart from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Some displaced travelers have been put up at hotels. Others got out of there on non-MD-80 flights. Still, a lot of people are spending the night stuck at the airport.

Luckily the folks at DFW are prepared for this sort of thing. They’re treating this incident like a weather event and have brought out cots, blankets, diapers, formula and other sleep-over necessities.

They’ve also put their emergency “concession plan” into operation: a few bars are staying open until 2 a.m. and a few restaurants will stay open all night.

Let’s just hope no one starts in with those scary ghost stories…

What’s worse? Delta Airlines or the dentist?

Delays

Ever play that game, “What’s worse…”?

While I spent an hour stuck in a dentist’s chair today in Seattle, my friend Sheila was stuck in a slow-moving customer service line at the Atlanta airport.

Her connecting flight between D.C. and Memphis was one of the 275 flights Delta Airlines scrubbed today so it could perform safety inspections on 117 of its planes.

In a series of messages she left on my cell phone, my friend told me that at first she was informed she’d have stay in Atlanta until tomorrow, when seats on an alternate Delta flight might become available.

“Unacceptable,” my friend said. Sweetly, I’m sure. “I’m not leaving until we figure something out.”

And they did. My friend bought a pricey seat on an Air Tran flight.

Now let’s see if getting her refund is going to be like pulling teeth….