The trip was going so well, but things have now gone south (or west in this case). The Hawaii flight was a little slow in getting into Las Vegas and Northwest said that 45 minutes would not be enough time to load our bags and passengers must fly with their bags. One in our party has a 6 month old and could have gone without bags so she could get the baby home, but Northwest had already taken the opportunity to give our seats away. There are no open seats for several days – I suppose because of Spring break. We will try to get out stand by at 6 in the morning.
One positive thing about the Las Vegas airport – free wifi.
Rest of the story:
S0, it is Friday and there are no open seats out until Tuesday. We go stand by.
Cindy and Lynn (with baby Addison) are allowed on a 6 AM flight. Women with children and women with broken leg (Cindy) first!
Kim and Jimbo make it on a 12 noon flight. Only room for two.
ME? I am the only one left, but they start allowing “elite” members to go to the head of the list. I am not elite enough.
5:50 PM and somebody fails to show. I get my chance. I have watched this process now for many hours and I have witnessed the angry passengers show up a few minutes to late and confront the individual at the gate to let them board. I am nervous until the door is closed. We taxi to the end of the runway and stop. We all wait. After a couple of minutes, the pilot comes on the intercom and says that his computer is showing an error message. He was able to reset the computer, but the maintenance people want to have a look. Fine with me. We taxi back to the gate and sit there – for a couple of hours.
They open the door to allow the maintenance men into the plane. No one follows to drag me off.
It turns out to be something related to the avionics cooling system. It is like those little fans in your computer says the captain. I get back to MSP sometime after midnight.
PS – I would have updated this blog from the Las Vegas airport, but I left my computer glasses (something like reading glasses) in the plane we took from Hawaii. When I get very tired (evidently sometime past 30 hours), things begin to look fuzzy. Sometimes, it is just better to get up the next day and start over. 🙂
