Back to Seattle, Luckily.
I arrived home in Seattle last night at 11:15, on time, but nonetheless a narrow escapee of the mechanics strike against Northwest Airlines. When I arrived at the Milwaukee airport to begin my journey home, I anticipated an hour or so winding down in the Worldclub there - cramped by most standards, but staffed by the friendliest and most service-oriented people I’ve met in the entire airline. People who say, “Hi, Phil!” when I wander in on a Friday night looking like hell.
Last night, though, my Milwaukee-Minneapolis flight was showing a 30-minute delay. I wasn’t too concerned, as I had a 2+ hour layover in Minneapolis. I knew there was an earlier flight that I could run to the gate to catch, but I was already assigned my first class seat on my booked flight, and I was fine with waiting out any delay. When checking into the Worldclub, however, the person at the desk urged me to go catch the earlier flight - plus, she said she could get me “up front” - a first class seat. So, I followed her advice and headed for the gate instead of pouring myself a drink and letting the week slake off of me.
I got my boarding pass and took my seat, “up-front” as promised, and watched as more and more refugees from the later flight poured onto the plane in a tribal migration away from something that they’ve been taught to flee from - the last flight out of an airport that appears to be having “issues”.
We got to Minneapolis without incident, and it wasn’t a bad thing - MSP is a Northwest hub, and the Worldclub is a lot more spacious and opulent, a fine place to spend my (now) 3+ hour layover. My flight to Seattle departed on time and arrived a little ahead of schedule.
When I retrieved my bags, however, I noticed that the tags read “Frontier Airlines - Rush”, and that they’d been routed on Frontier through Denver to Seattle. Interesting experience for my dirty clothes. Curious, I checked the flight information for my originally-scheduled flight, and saw that it had been cancelled for “aircraft maintenance”. So, if I’d waited around for it, I’d have spent Friday night in Milwaukee, and had to take whatever seats were available on the Saturday flights.
On the surface, if I hadn’t noticed the non-standard routing for my checked luggage, all would have seemed even better than normal. It’ll be interesting to see what effects this strike will have as more aircraft need maintenance. I’m scheduled to fly them again Wednesday night.
