JAX-CLT-DFW

Flights from 2.25.09.
For some reason Charlotte was a popular layover as far as being cheap for many of us to get to/from Texas. The direct flights were just too expensive. First flight - US 952 from JAX-CLT, connecting to US 1126 CLT-DFW. About a 70 minute layover in CLT. Met up with Clete in DFW who was flying in from SAT. He actually missed his flight, so I waited a few extra minutes, but not too bad. His flight was on AA, but it was easy to find him even though I had to go to a different terminal. DFW, I find, is super easy to get around. Picked up the rental car and headed to the hotel. Had dinner in Grapevine at Wilhoite's. Very enjoyable patio seating. Hotel located in Las Colinas.

SFO-ORD-JAX

The next day(12.9), the red eye is set to go from SFO to ORD, departing at 11pm. KD and I get to the airport, return the car, and head to the gate. The flight leaves a few minutes late but we basically get to O'Hare on time. Then the fun begins. We pull up to the gate with about 45 minutes to go until the connection to JAX. Everyone stands up immediately(by the way, why do people do this, especially those in the back? Are you going to get up and walk right off? Never.) Anyway, after about 10 minutes of standing around, we are informed that the wheel of the jetway is frozen to the ground and that a crew will have to come and de-ice the wheel. Frozen to the ground? In Chicago? I had never heard of that happening, much less in a place where it is actually cold for half the year. After the delay, we missed the connection. As we get off the plane and look at the TV monitors, the flight is labeled 'closed'. At this point, we head over to the United customer service desk, explain the situation, and are given boarding passes for the next flight to JAX, 7 hours later. No, that is not a misprint. I asked to be re-routed through CLT or DCA, but because there was a line of thunderstorms sweeping eastward, that option was not granted. I walked away resigned to the fact that I'd get to know O'Hare much better than I cared to. KD, however, was having none of that. She went back to the counter and asked to be flown to Orlando where she would rent a car and drive home. I wasn't going for that plan. A funny thing happened when she went back to the counter. The agent sitting next to the one who originally helped us overheard her and suggested we try to get booked on an American flight which was leaving in about 2 hours. Much better. But why didn't the first agent offer that? He calls over to AA, gets it switched, and has us go to the gate for a seat assignment. Beacuse this was in a different terminal, we found the mini-bus and arrived at the gate. We get to the gate and the AA agent can't find the reservation. Something was not 'linked' properly. She tells us to head back to the UA desk. Luckily, there was one in this same terminal. Shame for us it was a hike away. We walk over, wait in line, explain the deal, and it all gets fixed. Back to the gate. But there's more - the agent now notices that on our boarding passes, there is some kind of security code which made it look like we had not cleared security. Keep in mind, we never ventured out of the terminals, other than the bus ride, and this is still considered to be behind security. Back to the checkpoint, which was another hike. I spoke to the officer and he was actually great about it. We did not have to wait in line or anything. They just checked us right there. Back to the gate and now we were good to go. The flight leaves on time and from about 29 degrees in Chicago we arrived to about 72 in J-ville. As we are walking off the gate, we notice the people waiting there to get on the plane to go back to ORD and low and behold, one of our co-workers, JS, was sitting right there. We said hello and he mentioned that we both looked like we had been to hell and back. Funny, funny, ha ha. On to the shuttle bus for the parking lot and finally back home.

JAX-ORD-SFO

These particular flights were on Monday, December 8. Kim, Kristina, and I were headed out to our Pleasanton, CA office, which is about 35 miles east of San Francisco. The United flight out of JAX was delayed as the plane coming to get us had some sort of mechanical issues in either IAD or ORD. Never quite found out where it was coming from. If our flight was on time, we would have had about a 70 minute layover. Not bad at all. We were all waiting at the gate, when the texts and voicemails started coming in. There was an initial delay of about 45 minutes. It then grew to almost 90 minutes. It was now pretty much a done deal that we would miss the connection. Luckily for us, the United gate agent was one of the friendliest workers I've come across. She actually made a point to check with each passenger to find out if they had a connection to make and then made the appropriate arrangements. Granted, it was a smallish plane, but still. The other plus to having chosen our connection through ORD is that there is a flight to SFO about every 90 minutes or so. Before the flight to ORD took off, I made a point to check our arrival gate as well as the departure gate for SFO. To my surprise, we only had to go from C2 to C6. Very lucky for ORD. The flight takes off, goes well, and we taxi to our gate. Literally as we are standing up to get off the plane, I look out the left window of the plane and our SFO flight is pushing back from its gate. Damn it. So now we have 90 minutes until we board the next flight, but at least we had confirmed seats. We went for a stroll through a different terminal, mainly to go for a walk, and we got a snack as well. Back to our assigned terminal, and off we went to SFO. Landed in SFO, Kristina got her bag from baggage claim, and then we made our way to the monorail to get the rental car. Ended up getting to Pleasanton around 10pm. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. The Sheraton was right across the street.