Flying to Seattle…
June 3rd, 2007 by AnnaThis post is in “memoriam” of when I was supposed to leave John Wayne Airport to head to Seattle for SMX Advanced 2007. I was supposed to fly out at 12:57 PM on Alaska Airlines and arrive in Seattle and 3:36 PM. I was going to go to the pre-registration and networking event on Sunday night and rest up before the conference kicked off on Monday morning. Ahh… the best-laid plans…
Anyhow, we found out that our plane had a mechanical failure (hydraulic leak – fun) so we were delayed until 9:30 in the evening. Well that wouldn’t fly with me (no pun intended). So I went to the counter w/everyone else and tried to get out of there. They ended up cancelling the flight while I was in line. They conveniently waited until their competing airlines’ flights had already left to cancel our flight.
I ended up getting taxied to Long Beach airport and left on a 6 PM flight arriving just after 8:30 PM in Seattle. By the time I got to the hotel it was after 10 PM and the evening event was over. I was bummed, but was grateful it wasn’t midnight or something later than that.
I felt very bad for a great group of high school band students who were also affected by the flight issues. There were 75 kids, 5 parent chaperones and 2 or 3 teachers. They were supposed to fly out at 10 AM but their flight was cancelled for mechanical failure. So they were all scattered and bumped to 5 other flights, one of which being this one I was supposed to be on. Some of those poor kids were in the airport from 9 AM till after 9 PM on Sunday. I saw some of them arrive shortly after me in Seattle’s airport. Great group of kids!
Everyone has fun airport and flight stories, so here’s one for the record – off to SMX I go! 
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