The Airport

When I first met people in my office and told them how I got into Montgomery without any incident, they were surprised. Every one of them. Each person has their horror story about flying in or out of Montgomery Regional Airport and the random delays, cancellations, or other oddities that plagued their journey. Well, now I have mine. Despite it being a beautiful day, my flight to Denver is delayed by three hours because the plane has not arrived yet. Which is the same reason why my flight to Montgomery was delayed by a half hour back in July. This was also a common theme among my co-workers and their delays. I don't know if Delta (the major airline that uses the airport) is making moonshine runs with these things, or if the pilots down here get hammered and need some extra time to sober up, but the regularity of these delays is alarming.

Originally my itinerary had me going from Montgomery to Memphis to Denver, arriving in CO around 4:00 pm. When I got to the airport, though, my flight from here to Memphis was delayed to where I would land five minutes before my other plane took off. I called Delta and managed to get my itinerary tweaked so I'd go from here to Atlanta to Denver and arrive around 7:00 pm. They were really nice and quick about it, too, which I thought was nice. As soon as I get that boarding pass and get through security, however, I hear that my other plane just arrived and they should be getting into Memphis at least a half hour before my other plane was to take off.

Needless to say, that did not make me happy. While a half hour is cutting it close, I've done it before. It pisses me off, too, because I was able to get emergency exit seats for both flights. Now, I'm in a window seat to Atlanta, and still need to pick up a boarding pass there, so I don't know where I'm ending up. Probably the very back of the plane in the middle seat, right next to a colic baby. So help me god if that's the case.

The reason I'm going to Denver in the first place is for my week of training with the company. They like to give some people experience on the job before sending them to training, so they have exposure to the terms and concepts of what's going on before they learn about them. Apparently it's more helpful that way. One of the guys in my office knows someone who's doing the training so he made sure to pass along some "good words" about me. On the bright side, the other two guys who got hired from Montana will be there too, and I'm arriving early and leaving late so I can hang out with family in the area. So overall, the training will probably kick my ass, but everything else should be a blast. Seems to be a common theme these days...