Date: Friday, August 24
Route: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)-Las Vegas McCarren International Airport (LAS)
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Flight: 427
Aircraft Type: Boeing 757-200
Aircraft Registration: N685DA
Scheduled Departure Time: 4:50pm
Actual Departure Time: 7:50pm
Scheduled Arrival Time: 7:46pm
Actual Arrival Time: 8:50pm
I was preparing for a 1:30 departure from my office to catch the 4:50 flight, when at around 12:30, Delta's computers frantically contacted me via every contact method I had ever given them...email, cell phone, and work phone. The flight would be delayed an hour and would now depart at 5:50. I appreciated that they told me before I left for the airport. I also wasn't surprised, since looking at FlightAware, this flight took off between an hour and 5 hours late literally every day.
With no meal on board, we wanted to grab lunch before we took off anyway. I was supposed to meet the lady at her office where a Town Car was supposed to be waiting for us. He got a flat tire on the way and called to let us know, but since we were in no rush we would now be able to get lunch in the city and avoid the airport's overpriced grub. We had lunch at a coffee shop and caught a yellow cab around 3:45 pm.
We figured it was still pretty early and traffic wouldn't be too terrible, but the Midtown Tunnel, LIE and Van Wyck disagreed. It took over an hour to get to the departures entrance at Terminal 3. We checked our bags at curbside and headed to security, where thankfully the line was under 5 minutes long. After a stop at Hudson News we got to the gate just as boarding was starting, which we hadn't heard announced thanks to the nearly inaudible PA system.
Before pushback.
I had a window seat on the right side, 36F. As expected, the plane had the Song-style seatback IFE with live TV, movies and games, and in fact this was an ex-Song aircraft. I began trying to play with it right away, but the system was not activated until later on.
The flight filled up to capacity and at 6:00pm, now an hour and 10 minutes after our scheduled departure, we finally pushed back. It took a few back-and-forth maneuvers to move the plane away from the gate, which sits in a corner nestled by the terminal not far from the wingtip on the right and another occupied gate on the left, and finally we made it to the taxiway and turned right to enter the 13R takeoff queue.
As we were turning, I saw the longest line I'd ever seen...at least 40 planes ahead of us, with more being allowed to cut in from Terminal 1 and beyond. Soon the captain, in a not-so-thrilled-tone, announced that we would indeed be facing a significant delay due to the long line, but that there was an hour of taxi time built into the schedule so we would not be late arriving at LAS. How this would be possible when we had already pushed back an hour late is beyond me.
Uggh.
About 10 minutes later after not having moved an inch, the captain spoke to us again with more ominous news: due to weather, they might be flipping the airport to a new runway configuration, in which case we would be facing a serious delay as all the planes in front of us would have to turn around and head to the other end of the airport, cutting in front of us even though we were closer to the new takeoff runway. Sure enough, a couple minutes later he confirmed this was happening, but he said that we might be able to cut a few planes since we were so close. We turned around and began rolling towards 22R. And then we found a resting spot and sat. And sat. And sat. We didn't cut any planes...all those heavies at the other end of the airport had to meander all the way from the southwest end to the northeast end of the airport in front of us. In the meantime the flight attendants ordered us to stay seated, but did hand out bottled water. I watched TV and played the IFE trivia game, which pits you against other passengers. Despite many of the questions clearly having been copied from a mid-90s British version of Trivial Pursuit, I kicked some arse.
Terminal 1.
Bored.
We finally made it to the active at 7:50pm, a full 3 hours late. With the IFE and the the captain's honesty about how bad it was going to be, it wasn't unbearable. My friends on a later flight experienced a similar delay except their ex-Song bird's A/C was broken, causing extensive misery during their time sitting on the tarmac.
The flight was smooth, but we did see extensive lightning to the north. We actually corrected course a few times to avoid storms associated with a massive nasty front that caused severe flooding in the Midwest and stretched from central Pennsylvania (which caused the JFK runway flip) through Nebraska. Speaking of Colorado, I was disappointed that because of the delay, the Rockies and all the other beautiful landscape out west — one of my favorite parts of flying out there — would be under darkness. Since I'd be flying the redeye back east, I knew I wouldn't see them at all. :(
IFE was fun and I would say a deciding factor on what airline I choose. Unfortunately my headphone jack was loose and played stereo intermittently, and eventually didn't work at all unless I held it in a particular and uncomfortable position. The trivia game was fun and it was free. I sprung $5 to play poker (other games are included as well, but were mostly boring) but the poker game refused to load. I am still awaiting my refund.
We touched down nicely on runway 25L and taxied to the gate. After trudging to the baggage claim area, which is literally about a mile away via foot and a shuttle train, we waited about 10 mins at our carousel before the digital screen changed to "Please pick up your bags at carou..." Yes, the end with the # was cut off. Awesome. Thankfully I saw the display on the next carousel had changed to our flight. We waited another 20 minutes before finally capturing our bags and headed to the 15 minute long taxi line and about 25 minutes later we were in our hotel room.
Date: Monday, August 27
Route: Las Vegas McCarren International Airport (LAS)-John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Flight: 422
Aircraft Type: Boeing 757-200
Aircraft Registration: N634DL
Scheduled Departure Time: 11:30pm
Actual Departure Time: 11:45pm
Scheduled Arrival Time: 7:18am
Actual Arrival Time: 7:05am
After handing over enough cash to the local casinos, it was time to head home. Actually not home yet, I would be going straight to work from JFK after landing. Yay! My sleep maximization plan for the shorter eastbound flight: two Excedrin PM's taken on the way to the airport, fall asleep as soon as you get to your seat, and wake up in New York with about 4 hours of sleep under your belt. Turned out this worked just about perfectly.
We checked in at a nearly deserted Delta ticket counter, which made me After maneuvering through the airport, which included a walk through a non-operating TSA "puffer" machine, we got to the gate with about 20 mins before our boarding time. We ended up boarding about 10 minutes late, when the Excedrin PM was really starting to knock me out. As soon as they called Zone 4 I jetted, leaving my Zone 5 friends who were in other rows in the dust so I could get some Z's. This plane had no IFE, but I didn't care because my objective was sleeping. I sat in seat 40A and passed out. I woke up briefly as we throttled up to takeoff thrust, and then zonked out again, not to wake up again until the sun started to creep through the shade over eastern Pennsylvania.
We landed a few minutes early but had to wait for a gate. The gate we were assigned was a tow-in gate, which meant an extra couple of minutes of waiting. But we did get off the plane just about on time. Delta's dark cramped JFK baggage claim isn't the most fun place to be at 7:30am, and after about 25 mins my bag was one of the last to come around on the carousel, which made me quite annoyed.
Good morning, JFK!
But the trip was over. Great success!
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