Off to LA

Finally off and away to Los Angeles and the adventure is underway.  The morning has been nothing but eventful, and if it is any indication of what is to come it should be interesting (which is good, because there is nothing worse than boring travel).  After all, I want to be kept on my toes!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I switched flights from the 10:30 out of Atlanta to the 8:30.  That meant the morning started around 5:30 and we were out of the house and off to the airport right after 6:00.  I arrived, checked my bag, and headed through security.  The gate ended up being out at the new international terminal (it seems it had come in last night from Buenos Aires), and, as I usually do at the Atlanta airport, decided to make the hike from the main terminal all the way to concourse F – a 1.5 (roughly 2.5km for you Australians) mile walk with my luggage.  I figured I have about 24 hours of sitting in the very near future, so the walk would be good.  It also killed some time and I got to my gate just after 7:30 for boarding to begin at 7:55. 

An exhibit on the history of Atlanta on the walk to Concourse F. 

There is something refreshing about traveling standby, which I wouldn’t have expected.  Usually I end up in the last zone to board and stand around anxious to get on the plane, but with no confirmed seat I just sat and relaxed as everyone queued up and stood around.  As the plane was finishing boarding, they announced that all standby passengers were cleared (just as my friend texted me to tell me the same news – thanks Megan!) and I walked right up to the scanner, was handed a ticket, and got right on the plane.

I ended up in 33H, a center seat on an outside row in Economy Comfort – YAY LEG ROOM!  I settled in and we pushed back just after 8:35.  I started watching Identity Thief, a movie I have wanted to watch but not necessarily commit to going to a theater to see it.  We got to the taxiway and were told we were second for takeoff.  Ten minutes into the movie we were still sitting on the taxiway and the pilot announced that they were waiting for paperwork that had to be sent to the cockpit about fuel before we could take off, and that it would be five minutes.  Five minutes turned into 25, at which point we pulled off the taxiway back to the ramp to allow other planes to pass.  Ten minutes later the pilot came on and said he had some bad news – we all were worried that meant we would have to get off the plane.  Fortunately it was that we had to return to the terminal to get a paper copy of the information we needed before taking off and replace “a few thousand pounds of fuel we burned while waiting.”  Five minutes at the gate became 45, but it was fine as I had a nice chat with the woman next to me in the window seat.  Her husband is a pilot for Delta and we talked about travel, Atlanta, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and our upcoming trips.  The pilot came back on to say that we were all set to push back, but we ended up waiting 15 more minutes before a truck could come to help us out.

Finally, we made our way back to the taxiway and took off around 10:35, two hours later than the flight was supposed to, right on time of when I had originally anticipated, and much earlier than I needed to make my connection.

So now I am no worse for the delay, had a nice chat, and am sitting in a really comfortable (okay that might be a BIT of an overstatement) seat on my way to hang out in LA for a few hours.  I have seen the best that standby can offer, getting on my first flight and getting a nice seat.  Hopefully my luck will continue.  As I had already kind of figured out, and as confirmed by the woman next to me, there is a chance I will be flying first class to Sydney because of the way Delta has the standby set up!  Fingers crossed.