V-Flyer

Had to get up early for this flight - the alarm was going off at 3.30am and I was heading out the hotel just after 4am for the drive from Fayetteville to the North West Arkansas airport in Bentonville. Grabbed a coffee from a drive thru and carefully drove the half hour journey, feeling rough as anything as I'd only gone to bed at midnight.... Do'h!

Had checked in online the previous day, so once I'd dropped the hire car off (I'm always wary of having to use a 'letterbox' for the keys, but there's little that can be done if the rental place isn't open) and was soon going through a quiet security.

XNA airport is very small, with only one place to eat and one shop. So I bought a coffee, made a few calls back to the UK, and we were soon called for boarding.

Through the small gate and we were down the walkway and onto the plane. It was tiny - two seats, and aisle then one seat. Somehow I'm managed to blag seat 1A so I was on one of the single seats at the front. Or so I thought....

I was just putting my bag in the overhead locker when the pilot came out and said to the CC that they had a maintenance issue and everyone had to get off the plane. So the 15 or so of us that were on the flight were all led back to the gate. After a short wait the check in person told us that the flight was delayed and those with connecting flights should come to the counter to be re-routed. Well, it appeared that I was the only person not with a connecting flight, so I was at the back of the queue. As the poor girl was one her own, it took her over an hour to get through everybody else until she got to me. And of course, by now I'd seen a flight with AA depart to Chicago, one to Charlotte and one to LGA which I could have used to get to Chicago. But it was not to be. When it was my turn, She put me on the next available flight which was 10.30 - but at least it was direct. By now it was 7.30am, so another 3 hours to wait in an airport with little to do in and being dead tired.
Luckily I had the last episode of 'Sherlock' to watch, so that past 90 minutes, and remaining time was past by making a few calls.
Boarding was then delayed again by half an hour due to the late arrival of the plane. So when I did get on, I really didn't care that I was on the back row! No one was sat next to me, so I could get comfy and I was fast alseep before we'd taken off.
The next thing I knew was the announcement for landing - I'd slept solidly through the entire flight!
Landing at ORD seemed straight forward, and we were soon off the plane. It was a long walk through the terminal to the taxi's but from landing at 12.30, I was at work for not long before 1.30. Just 5 hours late.....

The trials and tribulations of a road warrior! These things happen all to often in the USA ... hopefully not to often for you.

Thank you for the TR. Glad to hear you managed to get to Chicago...eventually.

Absolutely awful luck, but with the sheer volume of flights in and around the US, MX issues happen a fair bit. Having said that the one time I've had one in the last three years has been at LHR, and quite an experience that was .....

More often than not these sub 1hr flights are just made for a nap - and nothing else. Having been on one this morning PRG-FRA, at all of 40 mins, I could not believe they actually did a full service on a full flight, sarnies, drinks and all.

Wouldn't you know it, in the course of writing the last post, I picked up a 30 min delay for my ORD-SFO ... figures to be an interesting evening ........

What a pain in the bum bleary eyed and delayed just what you need.

cheers

alex