Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Stuck in the Airport



We have had some adventures this week. We had planned on flying out to Nebraska on Sunday so we could celebrate Christmas with Micah's family and then attend his brother, Luke's wedding. However, the weather threw a wrench in that plan, we had snow, freezing rain and more snow. Totals over 9 inches at our house. Some flights had been cancelled on Sunday, but not ours, so we headed out in the crazy weather and made it to the airport. When we got to the gate we found out it was a half an hour delayed, no problem. We boarded the plane and were ready to go. And then we waited, and waited and waited. The pilot told us we were waiting for de-icer. And we waited, and waited and waited. After two hours on the plane, the pilot told us that there was no more de-icer for Frontier. So all flights would be cancelled for the day. So we de-planed and Kim and Andrew were picked up. Micah stayed at the airport to wait in the loooong Frontier line to talk to the Customer Service Agent. He ended up waiting 3 and a half hours. The only option was to fly standby on the 6am flight the next morning.

So Monday morning, the Frontier phone line said the flight was on time, so did the Port of Seattle Web Site. We got to the airport at 5am and found out our flight was already delayed 3 hours. Then later we found out it would be another couple of hours. They had to wait until the de-icer equipment was ready. We spent our time playing with Andrew and talking to the other people around us. At 11am we found out they were still waiting for de-icer and they had cancelled the rest of the flights for the day. But....they would try to get this flight out since we had been waiting so long, but it probably would not leave until sometime after 6pm, more like 8pm. That would mean we would not get in to Denver in time to catch a flight to Omaha that we didn't have confirmed seats on anyway. And getting in that late meant we would not be able to make it to Nebraska in time for the wedding. Needless to say we decided to just go home and bag it.

We ended up having Christmas with Micah's family over the phone. That was a new experience. We are thankful Micah's parents are coming out here in a little over a week. We also hope to get together in a month or two with everyone.
Who knew that even with purchasing tickets we wouldn't be able to fly out for Christmas? I guess we should just stick with standby.

2 comments:

Lyndsay said...

This is awful! I'm so sad you guys had to miss Luke's wedding. I'm so happy that you are safe and at home though. The other night I heard about a plane that slid off the runway in Denver and my heart stopped until I saw that it was a Continnental flight because I knew you guys were flying on Frontier. Thankfully no one was killed on that flight. This weather has sure ruined a lot of Christmas plans.

Anonymous said...

Wow.. I'm sure you'll never complain about standing in a line for 5 minutes, after being in a line for over 3 hours!

Merry Christmas!!