New York, New York!
At First Glance:
Our trip to New York was a simple hour and a half flight, DTW-LGA. American Airlines flight 4548 taking off at 11:10 and landing an hour later. This would be a four day trip to New York, as I'd be returning Thursday morning to leave for a trip Thursday afternoon.
The Beginning:
I woke up at 7:35am to shower and finish packing for a trip I had much been looking forward to! At the start of the day the outlook was good. My sister Tamar, my dad and I had our boarding passes printed and left for DTW at 8:30am. After going through an easy TSA pre-check security line, we walked over to gate D24 to wait for boarding.
All of my boarding passes
The Process:
The boarding process was uneventful. We were traveling on an E-175 which has first class in the first 4 rows in a 1:2 configuration, as well as coach in a 2:2 configuration starting in row 5. I was in seat 4F with my sister next to me, and my dad in 1D. After a quick boarding we taxied over to the runway and awaited take off.
me in seat 4B with my sister in 4A
The First of Many Problems:
While taxiing to the runway, New York ATC issued a ground stop on all flights due to weather and we'd have to wait it out. At this point I wasn't too concerned. After half an hour we had to return to the gate to get additional fuel because the new route to fly around the weather was much further than the original route. What we didn't know at this point was that the entire Eastern Seaboard was closed...DCA, PHL, EWR, JFK, LGA to name a few. While we were pushing back for our second attempt, we had no idea the departures board in the airport showed CANCELED for almost every destination. After 2 hours of sitting on the taxiway we were informed by the captain that the flight was canceled. This was a bit of an annoyance, as our family was waiting for us in New York. But In the grand scheme of things, we spent 3 hours sipping orange juice in first class. So I can't complain too much.
Sitting on the floor of DTW
Rebooking Madness:
Within an hour all flights to the eastern coast on all airlines were either canceled or delayed. It was madness in the airport, everyone was running around trying to get on different flights with gate agents rebooking customers like crazy. We tried to get onto 4 prior flights before finally taking a 5:35 flight to Miami.
AA's 767-300 First class seat 7A
Our Crazy Mentality:
All flights to New York the following day were overbooked so we knew we had no chance and it looked as if flying to Miami to get to New York was our best bet. (As insane as that may sound). The flight to Miami was smooth sailing, it was what awaited us in Miami that was real trouble. Canceled flights, overbooked cabins and madness accurately describe our connection. We couldn't make our original flight from MIA-JFK. Long story short: after spending many hours at different gates we got on the last flight of the night from Miami to New York and had an excellent flight down there. We arrived at around 2:10 and although it was almost 20 hours since we got to the airport that morning, I did get to try out American Airlines 767-300 first class which I had never been on. I should mention that the flight was oversold by 40 passengers and we got the last 3 seats on the aircraft due to others missing their connections and pure luck!
AA's 767-300 first class isle
The End Result:
After 18 hours of traveling, listing on 9 flights and disembarking twice we made it to New York by flying 1,300 miles out of the way, only to fly back another 1,200. We did however land at 2:10 am so it was quite the journey! I'll make sure to post a trip report of New York after I head back home following Thursday!