Flight DL1613

My wife is my travel agent.  It's not that I am  lazy or incapable of making my travel arrangements. It's that she seems to enjoy it and I certainly appreciate being spoiled in that way.

Friday, September 1st, was a travel first for me.  Until that day I had never flown to and from a distant destination in the same day.  All my flights until then were to get me somewhere to stay several days and then to fly home. It felt very strange walking into the terminal with no luggage. Not even a tooth brush. It felt more like I was there to pick up someone than as a flyer. My first flight that morning was Chattanooga to Atlanta. Then Atlanta to Indianapolis. The return trip that afternoon was the opposite.  Those two connections north were very important because my nine year old granddaughter would be waiting in the airport in Indianapolis. There I would gather her up and bring her home with me for a long holiday weekend.

Because my wife does such a good job, as normal I  was just taking one flight at a time and had not bothered to look at the itinerary. Although we were delayed a few minutes in Chattanooga, the Chattanooga to Atlanta flight was only about a 20 minute puddle jump and my travel agent always built in a cushion of time in  Atlanta. At about 11:15 am, about halfway there, I pulled out my boarding pass to see my boarding time for Atlanta to Indianapolis.  To my horror, it read "Flight DL1613 boarding 11:25 am". Then in fine print --"Departing 12:15pm." EGADS ! My Atlanta flight boards before we land ! The panic started in my toes, crept up my legs then my spine and toward my brain.  I immediately employed the techniques I have been taught to deal with panic, and throughout the whole ordeal I never let the panic into my head.  Stress? Yes !  Concern? Definitely !  My life passing before me? Probably. Imaging my granddaughter and her babysitter stranded in the Indianapolis airport for hours?  Of course.  But not full blown panic.

I told the nice man beside me my predicament and he said, "Well, I doubt you can make that. You need at least an hour between flights in Atlanta.  And if you miss it you'll have to fly standby and they may not have a seat available."   Little comfort in that.

It was now 11:25, my flight, flight DL1613 was boarding,  and we were still in the air. I knew we had to land, taxi, and  disembark. And all of that took time.  Time that I didn't have. Before we landed, I learned two things. We were arriving at Concourse A and my departure Gate 33 was at Concourse C. Two concourses may not seem like that much of a hike, but in Atlanta it's about a mile and a half. When my feet hit the ground in the airport, it was 11:45.  I had twenty minutes to make my flight.

The voice in my head talks louder at times than others.  It emphatically stated, "Do not run over people!"  And I agreed. I had hoped that the gate of arrival would be close to the escalator to the tram. That was not the case.  I ran through most of the concourse to the tram.  At least the tram is very fast. I hoped that my Gate 33 would be close to the escalator. That was not the case.  It was 11:55 and I had about 20 gates to negotiate on foot. In true O.J. style, I ran and dodged and cut back and forth finding a crease, a seam, any opening  in the pedestrian traffic. Again, this may not seem to be a challenge, but this is the Atlanta airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. Finally, Gate 30, Gate 31, Gate 32 and by luck and the grace of God, Gate 33. I looked at my watch and it was high noon.  I arrived five minutes before they shut the doors of the aircraft and shut the doors on my travel plans.  The nice Delta representative scanned my boarding pass, smiled and said, "Have a nice flight."

On the return trip, Indianapolis to Atlanta was uneventful. I read my book and my granddaughter watched the Lego Movie on my phone (She's the one who figured out how to use Delta's WiFi).  In Atlanta, we had about an hour between flights and took our time finding the gate. About the time we were supposed to board, they announced that the flight was delayed forty minutes.  How much did that bother me? Not at all.  My granddaughter was by my side and we had nowhere we had to be until Monday afternoon. We passed the time by exploring the shops and then relaxing at the gate. I checked the news on my phone and she resumed her movie. I'd seldom been happier in my life.

So am I going to fire my travel agent?  Not on your life. My travel agent is the best in the business.  It was my fault for not looking over the itinerary before she booked the flights and for not noticing the predicament I was going to be in in Atlanta.  My wife was trying to get me to my granddaughter as quickly as possible. But regarding my flight schedule, to quote our neighbor after he got the $600.00  bill for the ambulance we had called to help him, "We're not doing this again."