Ryan's Currently Unnamed Blog

LOL.. so I got to spend a day or so in NYC, and my experience was hellish to say the least.

On the way out there, the flight was delayed. Ok, I can understand delays if there's a mechanical problem or if weather delayed the plane from arriving. But, the plane was sitting right at the gate when I got there. 55 Minutes later after the scheduled departure time, they finally let us get on the plane. The only explanation was "Air Traffic Control Delays" due to windy conditions in New York. Unless they are dramatically slowing down the rate at which plans can land in NYC and they don't want a backlog of planes circling around New York waiting for clearance to land, it just makes no sense at all.

So yeah... we finally get ON the plane, and then we sit at the gate for another 45 minutes before taking off. Ended up getting into New York about 2 hours late, but thankfully didn't mess with my plans TOO much.

My return flight was the next day. 4PM flight, I get to the airport at 2PM and go to checkin. The automated kiosk was very polite in informing me that my flight had been canceled and offered a flight at 6am the next morning. I check the departure screens and just about EVERY flight to chicago is cancelled, but other cities are just fine. Again, they blamed it on wind in NYC! LOL A phone call or two later they put me on a flight that was scheduled to leave at 6pm on another Airline. Delta. Alright, so I wander around the terminal building at LaGuardia and find out that Delta isn't in this terminal. Sweet, so I ask some security guy how to get to the delta terminal. He politely points me out to the street, tells me to wait for the bus and it will take me to the other terminal building where delta flies out of.

Bus shows up... drops me off at the new terminal building. I check in with delta, get a boarding pass and head towards security. The two security guards were too busy telling some story to each other to notice that people wanted to go through security. And of course the guy in front of me had like 1000 questions about he can bring on the plane. Like he's gonna head back home if he brought something they were gonna make him throw out. Ha. Anyway, I finally show my boarding pass, and she tells me in a thick Indian accent that Chicago flights for Delta are out of a seperate terminal building. The Marine Terminal Building. So, it was back out to wait for another bus and FINALLY get to this gimpy little terminal building that's from like 30s. Was kinda interesting being a pilot and seeing that this is where they launched some of the transatlantic flights in the 30s. The Yankee Clipper being among the most famous of the "flying boats".

Finally check in there and of course, the 6PM flight is delayed. We boarded at about 7:30PM, waited on the runway for another hour and half and finally got to chicago around 10:30PM.

All that for a little wind? Sure it was breezy, but it wasn't that bad... I could see if it was like 40MPH gusts...