Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Ed and I rolled out of bed at 3:30 AM on Christmas to head out to the airport. We were on time—even early—right up to the point where we arrived at our gate at Indianapolis International Airport.

Turns out that there was a bit of a mechanical problem with the jetway, so they had to move our plane down one gate. No problem. There was still time to board for an on-time departure. Alas, it was not to be. The plane had been on the ground overnight—with temperatures well below freezing. A member of the ground crew left the potable water valve open, and it had frozen that way. The vagaries of airplane design mean that when the potable water valve is open, the passenger compartment can’t be pressurized. And when the passenger compartment can’t be pressurized, the heat can’t be turned on.

Our 7:00 flight left at 8:30, and despite the assurances of the gate agent (“you’ll be fine; there are enough people going to Portland that that they’ll probably hold the plane for you”) we missed our connecting flight in Denver by about 30 minutes. Fortunately, we were able to get the next flight out at 12:25 PM local time and arrived in Portland only four hours late. At which point I discovered that the airport baggage handlers had ripped the seam of my suitcase.

I don’t think I’ll be collecting enough frequent flier miles on the airline in question to cash them in for anything good.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 26th, 2004 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Been There, Done That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.