The Long Day

On Saturday Adam, Jacob, and I arrived at Detroit Metro airport excited to board an early morning flight to Denver. Jim had left Houston earlier in the day in order to meet up with us in Colorado for a week long ski vacation. Using my shrewd ex-reservationist skills, I managed to arrange flights for Jim that would bring him into Denver within 10 minutes of our arrival. Jim showed up right on time. Adam, Jacob, and I did not.

The lines to check bags in Detroit Saturday morning were very long. Longer, in fact, than I had ever seen them before. We had no choice but to wait because we had skis, a snowboard, and ski boots with us. As the time ticked on, we began to get nervous that the line was not moving quickly enough. People were becoming very frustrated as the employees worked at what seemed to be a snail's pace. Long story short - we missed our flight, all because the Delta airline employees could not manage to check our bags even though we had arrived two hours before our departure time. We were shuffled off to the rebook line (Who knew there was such a thing?) to find a new flight to Denver. The rebook line had about 100 people already in it, and before long there were another 400 or so people behind us. I know. I counted. Unbelievably, there were only two ticket agents working behind the counter, and they took turns taking breaks, so sometimes there was only one worker. After two hours we had barely moved up at all. I phoned Delta's toll-free number numerous times, and even checked other airlines to no avail. Finally a reservation sales agent on the phone was able to find three seats on an afternoon flight to Denver that connected through both Milwaukee and Minneapolis. After hours in the rebook line, we finally had confirmed seats and we were greatly relieved.

Once on the Milwaukee-bound aircraft, the three of us settled in for the short jaunt to Wisconsin. Ten minutes later, the captain came on the intercom with the news that our plane had a mechanical problem that would require four hours of repair work. We were all sent back into the terminal to await Delta's decision about what to do next. A different aircraft was secured for the flight to Milwaukee, but there would be a lengthy delay as the passengers and luggage still had to be switched over to the new plane. We spoke directly with the pilots who assured us that there was no way we would be able to get to Minneapolis in time for our 7:15 p.m. connection to Denver. Much to our dismay, we were shuffled off to another rebook line. I phoned Delta for the 20th time - yes, I kept track - but was told that there were absolutely no seats available to Denver until Sunday.

After only an hour in the latest rebook line, we were actually chatting with an employee. She confirmed us on a flight on Sunday morning. Frustrated and ready to admit defeat, we took our new boarding passes. The woman then asked us if we would like to try to fly stand-by for the last Denver-bound flight that night, even though it was extremely overbooked and she was sure we would not get seats. We took on the challenge and hurried to the new gate. After all of the passengers had boarded, the gate agent called our names. She told us that she did indeed have seats for us and handed us boarding passes. In our tired stupors, we all squealed like little girls, grabbed the passes, and ran onto the plane before she could change her mind. The kind woman had seated us in first class, so, needless to say, I was a bit snockered from the complimentary free-flowing wine by the time we arrived in Denver . . . which was probably a good thing, because that took the edge off of the news that 3 out of 4 of our checked bags were actually in Minneapolis and would not get to Colorado until the next day.

Jim came to the airport to pick us up 13 hours after our expected arrival time. From the moment we left our house on Saturday morning until we stepped into our condo in the Rocky Mountains, 22 hours had elapsed. Our lost bags didn't show up until last night, so we were not able to ski on Sunday as we had planned. We intend to be on the slopes all day Monday.

Crowds inside the airport on Saturday.

Crowds outside the airport on Saturday.