Debbie and I had a blast visiting Valerie and Dan in Chicago. We visited the Chicago Institute of Art, the Shedd Aquarium, watched Dune, and ate at some iconic joints. The plan had been to fly in early Saturday morning, stay overnight, then fly back Sunday night (October 24). The flight in was fine. But here's the rest of the story.
Even before heading back to the airport, we learned that our return flight, American Airlines #1153 from Chicago Ohare to Cleveland would be delayed from 8:51 PM until 11:00 PM. This was not surprising because the weather was bad; there was a lot of rain and wind. It would be a long Sunday night.
After we arrived and waited a while, there was an announcement that the flight was delayed again, this time until 9:30 AM the next day. We understand that this delay was due to crew availability (or lack thereof). American provided vouchers for a hotel and meals. We asked to be placed on a different flight, since we had medical appointments, and getting in earlier might have enabled us to make some of them. Even though some other passengers managed to get on an 8:00 AM flight, we were told that it was filled.
As we arrived at the hotel and checked in, we learned that our now 9:30 AM flight was to be delayed until 1:30 PM. This may have also been due to crew availability. We called American to ask once again to be placed on an earlier flight, even if it was on another airline. Although there were a few options, none were nonstop, and they wouldn't have been any\better. All of the earlier nonstops were filled. The American Airlines agent did try to be helpful this time, so we appreciated that.
Late Monday morning, we arrived at the airport once again, only to learn that our 1:30 PM flight was now scheduled for 2:35 PM. We had to wait in line at the ticket counter because our boarding passes no longer appeared in the AA app. I guess this is because it was the next day. We weren't even able to print them. After standing in line for an hour (we had plenty of time, by the way), the American agent was not very sympathetic to our plight. "Welcome to midwest weather," he said, and not in a nice way. I unloaded our entire story on him, emphasizing that at least some of the delays were not weather-related. Even for the ones that were due to the weather, other flights were managing to come and go. I believe ours was continually given low priority by American. The Agent would not help us get onto another flight, saying there was no availability.
At this time, we learned that the flight would be delayed from 2:35 PM until 3:35 PM. Later, it was changed again to 4:08 PM.
When that time came, we actually boarded the airplane. There were only about twelve of us getting on the Airbus A319 that would normally seat well over 100 passengers. It seems that the others did indeed manage to get placed on other flights, or they possibly rented cars and drove. The pilot announced that there would be a delay to check on a tire. He later announced that the tire would need to be changed. He later announced that we would all need to get off the plane and there would be further announcements at the gate.
Now we were back in the gate area once again. We learned that we would need to board a different airplane for a 5:40 departure.
As that time approached, all twelve (or so) of us boarded a different plane at a different gate. As we got settled, the pilot announced that we needed to wait for catering. For those of us wondering why we needed catering for a 48 minute (wheels up to touchdown) flight, he noted that it wasn't just for our flight but also for the return back to Chicago. That made us feel much better as we waited yet another hour.
Finally, around 6:40 PM Monday, October 25, we left the gate. In case you're keeping track, that's 8 delays for a total of 22 hours. After a long runway delay, we arrived in Cleveland after 9:00 PM Eastern. Home sweet home.
We are not very happy with the way American Airlines treated us, Even considering the bad weather, you would think they would have provided more help to get us to our destination than they did. And you would think that they would give higher priority to distressed passengers than they did. And we were definitely distressed.
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