I Deserve a Refund

Well, we finally made it to Utah. It was quite an adventure. We got on a little plane in Cincinnati and flew to Detroit. There was a crosswind in Detroit, which was kind of fun. When we arrived in Detroit, our next plane was already delayed a half hour, which was not a big deal. We got something to eat, wandered around, and headed to our gate.

Of course, the plane we were supposed to board came in late. After a few minutes, they got on the intercom and said there was a slight mechanical problem and that a mechanic was going to look at it. They eventually told us that the pilots felt a vibration when they braked and they needed to have it checked out before the plane flew again. If it was going to take too long, they would just have us board another plane. We waited for a little bit longer, and then they sent us to another gate.

We arrived at the gate to find that our plane hadn't shown up yet. A few minutes later, the plane showed up. They tried to get the walkway out to it, but it got stuck in the snow. We had to wait for a snowplow to come and dig out the snowdrift so that the walkway could get to the plane. That didn't take too long and the people on the plane were finally able to get off.

After the passengers got off, they got on the intercom and said that our flight was overbooked and they needed some people with flexible travel plans to give up their seat. Um....No. I wanted to see my family. And I was sick of delays.

So, we finally got on the plane and got all ready to take off. Or so we thought. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The pilot got on and said that he didn't know exactly what was going on, but we were waiting for ground grew to come and load some luggage, shut the cargo hold, and push us back. Well, we waited there for three and a half hours! Yes, on the plane. The pilot would get on and let us know what was going on, but he didn't know much. Apparently, the ground crew was short staffed and there was about 19-30 other planes in our position. Finally, they got Minneapolis (?) on the problem. I guess they are the head honchos of some airports back there. They said that the ground crew had to come take care of us in the next 5 minutes or let us off the plane. Finally, after three and a half hours, we left for Salt Lake City. (At this time, our flight had been delayed a total of 5 hours and we should have already been in SLC.)

The flight was unevental, other than I was uncomfortable within 5 minutes of flying and slept most of the way. We finally got into SLC at 2 am local time (we were supposed to arrive and 9:15 pm) and started to stand up to leave. And nobody moved. The pilot got on and said that Northwest doesn't normally come to this gate and their ground crew didn't have security clearance and we were waiting on that. So we waited some more and then the pilot got on and said that the person that came to unlock the door didn't have the right key on him and needed to go find the right key. At this point, it was just ridiculous.

We finally got off the plane and headed towards the luggage claim. When the first luggage claim started up, only a few bags came and about 2/3 of the people on the plane were still luggage-less. Three baggage claims away, another one started up and more people got their luggage. Now there was only ten of us without luggage. So, we stood in line to talk to the baggage agent. By this time my poor parents arrived and stood in line with us. Because the Delta agent in Cincinnati hadn't given us a baggage claim ticket, it was going to be a little difficult. We finally left the airport at a little after 4 am, stopped by Wal-mart for the essentials, and was in bed by 5 am.

So, we keep bugging Northwest about our luggage. They finally said it was in Detroit. Yes, we had waited three and a half hours for luggage to be loaded on and it didn't include our luggage!! We finally got our luggage today, Tuesday afternoon. Since then, we've been surviving on my little sister's shirts, my mom's washing machine, and Carl's been wearing my 15 year old sister's socks.