<p>Okay BB - can you fill me in on your SeaTac woes? Fingers and toes crossed, my child will arrive there sometime tonight. The saga started yesterday morning at a different airport. Currently straddling options (the ticket in hand is for a plane still sitting at SeaTac for unspecified reasons). Meanwhile the very hopeful stand by option has been delayed due to a mechanical issue. </p>
<p>Where did they divert the plane to?</p>
<p>And I’ve lived most of the last 35 years in Western Washington - I can’t recall a stretch like this, though the storm 18 years ago this same time was pretty bad, too.</p>
<p>Mine’s still stuck at Logan, his 4 p.m. flight delayed until at least 6 p.m. because his plane is late getting to Boston. That means he’ll probably miss his connection in Chicago, which, of course, is the last flight out of Chicago to our city. </p>
<p>laflum, not yet. Since his dorm did not close I decided on Friday when they cancelled his flight to rebook for Monday evening. The weather shows clear on Monday and Tuesday. I could have gotten him on a 4pm out of Logan but it didn’t look good. Looks like according to over30 I made the right decision.<br>
So…he will be flying first class on Monday night because I was super nice to the ticket agent when I rebooked.<br>
Just glad as I have said before that he is tucked into his dorm room with food, computer, etc. Lots of kids stranded at various airports.</p>
<p>ebeeee, I think you made the right decision. I just talked to him and although his flight is still scheduled to leave in 30 minutes, there’s no plane at the gate. Doesn’t sound good.
And I agree that it’s better to be stranded in your dorm than the airport.</p>
<p>hmm thanks for that. I just checked on AA’s website and they claim the plane is in transit so I was kicking myself for not letting him try to leave today.</p>
<p>Phew – I just got a call from my son, who was planning to drive from VT after a long weekend skiing with friends back home, in CT. He just called and said they’re going to wait until morning. A wise decision, if you ask me. Maybe he’s starting to mature? Maybe the other parents said “Don’t drive!”?</p>
<p>I was gone for a few hours to get D from the airport! Her JetBlue flight was diverted to Salt Lake City around midnight last night. The pilots announced that the airline got hotel vouchers for the passengers, but when they got off the plane, the gate agents said “sorry, it is not our problem that the weather was so bad.” So I called a hotel and got whatever room was available. The flight continued its journey this morning without any problems, but it took us 2 hours to get the luggage! JetBlue cancelled all of their New England -bound flights out of Seatac, and it looks like that Seatac might shut down for the rest of the day. When we got out of the parking garage, it snowed really hard, and the temperature was dropping. Airlines kept cancelling flights out of Seatac while we were waiting for the luggage.</p>
<p>The thing that made me totally mad last night was that JetBlue did not have any information on their website about the status of the flight! The website kept saying “delayed” while the FlightView was showing that the flight was in the air. When I saw it making a 90-degree turn on the screen, I called the airline. I was uber-polite with the agent who was totally clueless and insisted that the plane had never left the gate at BOS. When I mentioned to her that I’m tracking the flight, she spent the next 10 minutes trying to confirm that it was in fact going to land in Salt Lake City!</p>
<p>Here are two websites that could be helpful when dealing with clueless airlines:</p>
<p>BB, glad she finally made it.
It isn’t just JetBlue. AA says the flight my son was going to take is in transit but according to your links it never took off.
Tomorrow I’m going to use your links for updates.</p>
<p>My stranded college kiddo arrived this evening. It took a few good turns over the course of a long day to literally squeak her in under the wire before most things shut down. What a nightmare at Seatac. I’m wishing good travel karma to the rest of the anxious parents trying to get youngsters home.</p>
<p>Thanks to BB and everyone else who endured listened to my rants. DH could care less so you guys helped a lot. DS finally made it home last night sans luggage and with a five hour car trip as I picked him up at a different airport. Happy Holidays to all.</p>
<p>Update: H filled out a comments form on JetBlue’s website ranting about their flight tracking mess, and they sent D a $25 certificate towards her next ticket, and another $15 for the DirecTV outage on their flight. Me thinks we’ll use the Alaska miles next time.</p>
<p>ebeee, glad he made it home, and hope the luggage shows up soon.
BB, at least JetBlue did something for you. Northwest didn’t make me happy over this whole thing. He ended up coming home on United, and the people I talked to on the phone were much more pleasant.
Now, the other one is supposed to be home late tomorrow night. I get to do this all over again.</p>
<p>BB: as the OP, I don’t mind the hijack. Compared to some of the stories on this and the other travel thread, my S had it easy. We’re only out a couple of hundred dollars, and he’s still not happy about being home early, but at least we didn’t have to wait, wonder and worry. Good luck to those with kids still on their way “home for the holidays”.</p>
<p>DS just called. He’s all checked in at the first airport (in the southeast…no weather “issues” that we know of) and the plane is supposedly on time. He’ll keep in touch all day…until his second plane is off the ground. </p>
<p>I read on the USAir website (today) that they were waiving fees for affected airports through today. I sure wish I had known that yesterday as I would have switched his flight to YESTERDAY (not because of weather…just to get him here a day earlier). Oh well.</p>
<p>BB,
It did occur to me that we hijacked the thread. Thanks for apologizing for all of us. These planes, trains and automobiles stories kind of took on a life of their own.
Our lost bag did show up today. Kind of a miracle since it had an old luggage tag with my business card in it and the scan tag was totally missing. I met a young man in line whose bag had been coded wrong and gone to the wrong airport.
While some of these newbie travelers are home time to remind them to tag bags with the address they are GOING to, and to double check the scan tag that it has the airport code of their destination before walking away from it.<br>
DS did have some great stories about first class and was super impressed when they asked if he wanted his milk warmed up to go with his cookies.
He is still trying to figure out why there is such a discrepancy between first class and steerage (as I call it).
Happy Holidays to all.</p>
I hope the missing bag will show up soon.</p>