Zannee’s Blog at BargainsLA.com

Flying sucks! I use to do it a lot in my dancer days. But I have grown to really hate it.
This last week I had to spend sometime in Tampa, Florida. The airport experience coming back was a classic example of why I hate it.

I arrived early (11:30am), checked my luggage and noticed my flight to Dallas Fort Worth was already delayed an hour. Since I was catching a connecting flight in Dallas to Burbank, I didn’t want miss it, so I ran to catch an earlier flight which had also been delayed. As we taxied out onto the tarmac the engines stopped and we waited two hours for clearance only to find that the Dallas Fort Worth Airport was completely shut down do to bad weather and all flights in were canceled.

At 3:30pm, we went back to the gate to de-plane.

The line at the American Airlines ticketing counter was over 700 deep. I had to wonder if I would make it home at all when they called out the people who wanted to get to LAX. 20 of us jumped out of line. Some of us had been headed to Burbank others to Ontario. We all knew that if we got into Southern California it was a lot better than spending extra days in Tampa. I thought we got routed onto a different plane…

After running downstairs, getting my luggage from baggage claim, rechecking it, running back upstairs to take the tram out to the gates, going through security, for the second time… shoes off, belt off, complete check of my purse, and brief case, I finally was back at the gate.

Oops, because of the Dallas Fort Worth airport closure, the crew for our plane was stuck in Dallas. Again my flight was cancelled. Back downstairs to wait in line and get re-ticketed. We were finally sent over to the Delta counter to get ticketed for a direct flight into LAX. They said they had our luggage transferred and at that point I didn’t care if they did or not.

Back up the stairs, onto the tram to the gate. The third time through security, they paid extra attention to our entire group and pulled all 20 of us aside. I guess there’s a code for last minute tickets and that flags security. Full body searches along with a run through these “walk-in” machines that blow air… It took a long while.

Every time I went through I had to dump the $2 bottle of water I bought for the flight after I passed security. No liquids over 3 oz were allowed through security. It was a running joke.

Minutes ticked by and it was our last chance to get out and not get stranded in Tampa. A family of 5 got held back in security and ended up not making the flight.

I was lucky. I was one out of hundreds who got out. As I write this, I am sure hundreds of people have still not been able to catch a flight out of Tampa. Plus now with the nasty weather hitting the East Coast, many more will be stranded.

The Delta flight was great. My luggage had made it through…. Quite a miracle in itself. The Super Shuttle to get from LAX to Montrose took forever. I didn’t care…I had made it back and would sleep in my own bed that night.