Once I was flying to Seattle on Horizon, and got on the wrong flight. I was exhausted. But when I was in my seat, I heard them read the flight number and got a jolt of surprise when I heard them read the flight number…but it was also to Seattle, so I stopped worrying. However, I was wondering how the heck I managed to get on that flight!
^ SFO is repaving it’s major runway during a few weekends thru June. A Major pain. The last weekend they worked, over 150 flights were cancelled and delays were up to three hours…
Once back in the 80’s I showed up for a flight on the wrong day.
They were like “you know this ticket is for yesterday” and I was all “whhaaattt I thought my flight was today”.
They let me on anyway, no hassles, no worries. The good old days of flying. 
Thanks for the PSA @BunsenBurner.
LOVE the Burbank airport but always hope other people don’t discover it. 
That being said, the citizens of Burbank voted that it was OK to expand it (during this last election cycle I think). Boo. I never want it to change!
@SouthFloridaMom9, you want them to expand the runway at Burbank. Burbank gets my vote as my least favorite airport to fly into. Short runways, only one precision instrument approach and when the winds aren’t aligned with that runway, you have to do a funky visual approach around terrain to runways with no instrument approach.
In addition, the ATC controllers are overwhelmed with traffic. Besides the scheduled carriers in that area, you have helicopters and VFR traffic. They can’t keep up, it’s a midair collision waiting to happen. Every single time I fly into there I get a resolution advisory…which means my TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) is showing a traffic conflict and is directing evasive action. Not long ago I had to do a missed approach on short final due to traffic, to which the controller said, “What traffic?” Uh…the traffic you called out a minute ago that looks like I will collide with?
Sorry to disillusion you on how awesome Burbank is! But you do want them to expand the runway, for safety reasons. 
@Sweetbeet and @Momofadult Thanks for clarifying. I misread sweetbeet’s post and thought you had some special inside trick for flying with instruments. Yes, my S always calls and books directly with the airline when flying with his cello. Their are only certain seats that the airlines allow a cello to occupy during a flight. And momofadult I think you are correct that a bass is too big to occupy a seat and has to go in cargo. My S is flying to Vancouver for an audition soon and air canada charges half price to purchase a seat for an instrument! Go air canada!
Ohhhh @busdriver11, funny you should mention that (very interesting post btw) about Burbank. We flew in there the week before last and had one of the scariest landings I’ve experienced in a long time. The wind was terrible. We were sitting on the wing and I saw our side of the aircraft dip seconds before the wheels touched the ground. People applauded when we landed. 
It seemed like just a quirk of that flight.
Your comments are appreciated and now I will not be resentful about the airport being expanded.
That’s good, SouthFloridaMom!
I flew into there as a pax not too long ago, don’t remember if it was on SW or Alaska. Had a flight similar to yours, very gusty winds, also a lot of turbulence coming in. A last minute gust can make the landings kind of alarming, that’s for sure. As we departed, the crew was calmly telling everyone to have a good night, and goodbye. I happened to be going to the same hotel and was on the hotel van with them. I mentioned that I was impressed, gusty winds, night visual into runway 15. The crew said, “Oh my God! We almost went around, that was hairy”. But the passengers never knew anything except for it was a gusty night in Burbank, because they completely faked it with their calm goodbyes…
Ignorance is bliss sometimes!
I have missed at least 2 flights by accident–one decades ago by accident and one a few years ago. Both times, the United folks were very kind and rebooked me with no drama and no change fee.
I also missed one Aloha airlines flight a few years ago because we had trouble finding the place to return the Thrifty car rental (never again). They put us on the next flight, again no change fee, no drama.
For sure. I flew into LAX last month from Phoenix. We got in 15 minutes early, so just a 45 minute flight! But then spent at least 30-45 minutes driving around the tarmac to get to our gate.
The pilot kept giving us updates:
“Folks, if you were wondering why we’ve just been sitting here for the last few minutes, we’re waiting for some cross-traffic to clear.”
“Now we’re waiting in line behind other planes so we can proceed”
“A plane is stuck at our gate waiting for a window to pull back”
“Almost there, just waiting for more traffic to clear.”
So 30 minutes sitting on the tarmac, then another 45 mins to get to the rental car center, all for a nominal 1 hour flight (and a 1 hour meeting).
Oh yes, my flight to SFO last week was delayed an hour due to the construction someone mentioned - fortunately it was a departure delay and I was waiting in the terminal and wasn’t stuck circling the airport at least. Unfortunately they didn’t spring the delay on us until a hour before departure so I was already at the airport.
The pilots and gate agents are at the mercy of the powers controlling the airport… They are not lying to you - they simply relay the info they get. So if there is a plane stuck at the gate, there is nothing your pilot can do but just sit there as frustrated as you are.
Oh, and because the entire LAX is a mess, dropping off the rental car and getting to the airport took more than an hour. Plan accordingly!
Ok–avoiding LAX this year. Sounds like SFO is currently having issues thru June too. Sheesh!
On my last flight we sat at the gate for about 10 minutes waiting for someone to show up and move the gangway over to the door.
I don’t think is the kind of “spirit” the airline was hoping to evoke when it named itself.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spirit-cancels-flights-fight_us_5911b37ee4b0e7021e9b1839?3gi&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
The airlines aren’t entirely to blame, the other issue is that as air travel has soared, the facilities are congested and the FAA control system is running literally on 40 year old technology and the next gen system (which was supposed to go live in 2015 acccording to Wired magazine article from early 2015), and that isn’t helping anything either. The other problem is that we haven’t necessarily figured out ways to make travel more efficient, for example in the northeast corridor a true high speed rail service could take the load off of airline travel, same in other high density/relatively short distance flight corridors. The system is basically stretched, and you add to that overloaded airports, airport infrastructure that is old, combined with bad weather, and it doesn’t take much to throw the system out of kilter, given there are something like 7000 flights a day passing over US airspace every day according to one stat I just read.
The latest United horror story –
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/united-passenger-says-crew-left-her-no-choice-pee-cup-n757366
Well, here’s hoping my flights over the next few days will be happily uneventful.
You’ll probably just fine, as long as you’re not flying on Spirit. It is very possible your flight will be cancelled on Spirit until the time that they decide to negotiate and give their pilots a decent contract. Until then, people are not working much overtime, and the company counts on that as so many people are leaving the company and they are not properly manned. They are highly underpaid and the company is making money, so they need to resolve this fast.
Something in the “pee in a cup” story does not compute… there is no way a flight attendant would hand anything to anyone when the plane is descending and lavs are locked. Plus, the article misstates the facts in the yoga pants incident… hmmm…