Stuck in Atlanta

I've been in the Atlanta airport for about 12 hours now and I've got about another 6 hours before my flight to JFK. From there, I'll take a flight to Heathrow and make it to London by 7:00am tomorrow. Less than 24 hours behind schedule... not too bad!

My back is REALLY hurting. Probably a combination of lugging my bag around airports for a day as well as sleeping on the not-so-comfortable benches of the Atlanta airport. (As a reference point, sleeping on benches at the airport is slightly less comfortable than sharing a motel bed with 7 people.)

I was SO close to making that flight last night. Just as we touched down in Atlanta, my connecting flight was taking off. Literally. Like, I could see it taxiing on the runway from my airplane window. If my flight in was 10 minutes earlier or my flight out was 10 minutes later, I probably could have made it.

Delta, btw, is probably the most inefficient airline ever. First of all, there were only FOURTEEN people on my flight to Atlanta. I was literally the only person in the first 10 rows of coach. I shudder to think of the fuel costs per capita on that flight. Yikes.

Then, once I got off the plane, I joined about 250 people in the line for the Delta Help Desk. Apparently, I was not the only person who missed my connecting flight. I talked to 5+ people who all had the same story I did: our flights into Atlanta ran 1-2 hours late, but our connecting flights left on time-- without us. One guy I talked to told me that he got to the gate only to have the door shut in his face!

The forever long Delta Help Desk line

Seriously, Delta! Why not just delay your flights out of Atlanta a little bit, too? I thought that they had extra time built into the flight plan for stuff like that, too.

I just feel bad for the customer service representatives at the Help Desk. The girl who helped me, Monique, looked like she was about to cry. She was screaming back and forth with one of the other CS reps about getting people blankets and people were seriously just BITCHING at everyone. Honestly... what can the CS reps do? They can't make the plane turn around, people!

I also feel terrible for the people who are actually traveling on a timeline. I met one girl who's going to miss her sister's wedding rehearsal-- and possibly the wedding-- because of her delays. Three guys behind me in line are missing their first day of Basic Training because they couldn't get to Fort Knox on time. (But, because they are military, they automatically got comped hotel rooms. They graciously yet creepily offered me space in their room. They were SUPER sketch, though, so I vetoed that idea. No reason to be needlessly risky just for a hotel bed...)

I don't really have anywhere I NEED to be right now. For me, all this means is that my 2 month trip to Europe will start a day later than planned. Boo-hoo, right?