V-Flyer

Booked the day before for a quick hop to Pittsburgh (1.5 hour Embrauer flight). Arrived after dreadful slog through downpour to discover that the plane was apparently still in St Louis, 'on maintenance' and pax were being re-routed as they appeared. Annoyed that I had not been alerted to this via mobile notification and that the airline still don't automatically reroute all pax, told I 'might' be able to go standby at 2:30pm. I was looking at a wash of the whole business day, until suddenly seats popped upon a connecting flight through Reagan.

Caught that flight (in fact had three seats to myself) and arrived with five minutes to spare for connection. Loaded (another Embrauer) sat on runway, unloaded due to 'maintenance' issue. Must say the crew were magnificent, explained the problem (window heater on port side non-functional) and said they would tinker with it. All bags offloaded, back to the world's worst gate (37A at Reagan) where everyone mills around waiting to be called downstairs as flight after flight leaves. Clock ticks. Hours pass, figure they have given up, pull out my laptop and re-book myself on 4:30 flight. Boston flight is called and think about just giving up and going home. Watch gate agents deal with long, long line of irate pax trying for re-routes as there are (count 'em) THREE planes gone tech at this one gate. Catch the eye of one particularly volatile gent and mentally caution him to simmer down as either he will stroke out or the gate agent (deservedly) will knock him down.

We are called to reboard. We skitter down stairway and out to plane--and sit there. One pax is called off plane and apparently refused re-entry due to some irregularity with his boarding pass. The whole plane can hear him as he loses all semblance of appropriate behavior (tarmac rage?) and my seatmate quietly comments, 'I give them three minutes until the air marshals show and drag him off' but finally he reboards and we are told that we are next in line to 'blast outta here' by Captain. Only we don't. We are pulled into side apron and it looks like we are headed back, but no, we turn around and finally 'blast off', Capt telling us later (just after a bout of severe turbulence) that the tower had tried to recall us due to storms in the north and finally relented due to our already delayed status.

Arrived PIT six hours late. When gate agent was asked about USAir's recompensation for delay, was told, 'We only say we'll get you there--we don't say when.' Needless to say, as premium Dividend Miles member, I fired off a letter--haven't heard back-.

Upshot of all this--USAir are definitely on VS airline partner list, and it may very well be a deal with the devil.

Fireworks starting up in the dark distance--a raucous 4th of July!

RR