Cancellations, delays and a sweet man!

Yesterday, we were supposed to take out the "kick-off" flight from Little Rock, Arkansas (LIT) at 0615. I knew the Flight Attendant that was supposed to bring our airplane into LIT the night before, so I texted him and asked him to let me know if his flight cancels. (If they don't bring the airplane to us, we don't have one to take out the next day.) There were tons of cancellations the day before in Chicago (ORD)--about 600 flights canceled that day! Sure enough, he texted me to let me know that his flight canceled.

What is supposed to happen then, is that Crew Scheduling is supposed to call our Captain and inform him of our cancellation and reschedule. Of course, they didn't call him. If I had not had my laptop with me, or my friend's text message, we would have gone to the airport at 0515 and had to sit around and wait until our new scheduled flight, which was a few hours later. Sitting around the airport is very fatiguing, as you may very well know! Fortunately, we were able to go back to sleep for a bit, because I called our Captain and let him know.

Actually, I flew less than half the hours I was scheduled to fly for this trip because of cancellations. If you were caught up in that mess in ORD, you have my sympathies!

Since we were delayed, our only flight was a deadhead (riding as passengers) back to the base (ORD) and we were finished with our trip for the week. Knowing what a nighmare that was going on in ORD, I decided to hang out in LIT, and take a non-stop flight to Washington Dulles (IAD) a few hours later on another carrier. It worked out beautifully--I was even able to meet up with Norm, and we walked home from the Metro together. It was very sweet-he even offered to carry my books for....uh, I mean, drag my suitcase for me!