Last week as I arrived at the airport I got a notification that my flight was delayed by half an hour. After I got over the initial 
irritation (why couldn’t they have told me before I left the house?? I could have done 30 minutes more of work!) I figured to make lemonade out of lemons or wine out of grapes or whatever, and head over to Vino Volo for a glass of wine and a snack.
Clearing security pretty quickly, there was still time for a treat. I ordered my wine and cheese plate, got out my laptop, and connected to the wifi. Then thought, hey, I should check on my flight just in case. Lucky I did! The original 30 minute delay had been shortened to a five minute delay, and my plane was set to board in less than five minutes. The waitress responded quickly to my frantic arm waving, and I signed my check, swallowed a few bites of cheese, and gulped my wine (ouch).
Of course, when I got to the gate we sat….and sat….and sat, and ended up leaving more than thirty minutes late. Whatever. The moral of the story is that it’s a good idea to keep checking your flight time if it’s delayed, just to confirm everything is the same. This is a good time to use Flight Aware to stay informed of where the incoming flight is.
Readers, have you ever missed a flight you thought was delayed?
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1. Not yet, but when we were living in Dakar, Senegal (well before 9/11), my spouse, my colleague, and I arrived at Dakar International Airport at 7 AM for a 9 AM flight to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
2. After check-in, we were informed that the flight would be two hours late so we decided to return home for another breakfast and more coffee.
3. When we returned to the airport 40 minutes before the new departure time, the ground staff of Air Afrique (now defunct) were very upset at us, as we were the remaining three passengers who hadn’t boarded. Apparently they decided they could leave earlier. Well, I told them, we are not late, you are early. This was one of three instances that a flight was delayed because of us.
That’s no good having to chug your wine, Warriorette. While nothing is ever totally dependable, I’ve been using http://www.flightaware.com – when my regular alert from the airline goes off I hit flightaware and it seems to know more what’s up that the airline does. Another good site if you’re a tense flyer is www turbulanceforecast.com
Cheers and love your blog!
Once, flight from MNL to HKG via CebuPac. Supposedly delayed for an hour, so our party of 6 did more duty free shopping then when we went back to the gate, it was already closed, plane already gone. Airline ended up putting us all 6 in the very next available CX flight.
I’ve flown four times with the same company this year. The first three times the flight was delayed between 15-55 minutes each time, because of late-incoming flight.
The fourth time, it was a holiday weekend, and I was at the airport well before the recommended time – 50 minutes before departure on a domestic flight. The information board said “Go to gate”
Once I had checked my bag (it took two minutes) and looked up at the information in the departure hall, it had changed to Go to Gate.
They started the boarding 40 minutes before scheduled departure.
Almost the whole plane were stuck in security.
Once I made it past security (still 30 minutes before departure time, and about 15-20 minutes before planes normally start boarding, in Norway at least.), with lots of other people behind me, the information had changed to “Gate closing.”
I asked the person in charge of getting people on the plane why they were doing it so soon – ” well, the plane got here early.”
…
Of course by the time I made it on board, we still had to wait for the remaining people – so I don’t quite get why they went Gate closing so soon.
We still departed 10 minutes before original scheduled time, with a full plane.
The whole experience was sort of mind-blowing.
2-hour delay in DEN, my 67 year-old companion and I switched terminals to try a new restaurant. Checked the Departures board and the UA app before sitting – still 2 hrs. 10 minutes into the meal, got a voicemail that the departure moved back to the original time – in 15 minutes! Threw $50 on the table, grabbed both our bags, sprinted to the train to get back to the right terminal, then OJ’d the 40+ gates, yelling over my shoulder to my companion to slow down and avoid a heart attack – I’d hold the door. Got there just as the door was closing. My new mantra: DL on-time, UA sometime…