United Airlines...

Recently, our local airport (Barkley Regional) changed carriers. We used to fly Northwest to Memphis. Now, it's United to O'Hare. I've heard good and bad about the new service, but never tried it myself. I had to make a trip to our company headquarters a few weeks ago, so I would find out myself.

I was in Lexington visiting Josh, so I ended up flying out of Bluegrass Airport. They run a similar service to O'Hare as Barkley except they run four flights a day. I knew I was in trouble after Donna dropped me off and I went to the kiosk to check in. I heard the agent tell the guy in front of me "Well, we'll need to adjust everyone's itinerary". Turns out there was bad winter weather in Chicago and all flights were backed up. I ended up with a backup flight to Dulles (instead of Reagan) for my trip. I sat at the gate and they kept bouncing the times of departure around. My original time was 10:40, but they moved that to 12:30 then 1 then 1:30. I had checked the FAA web site and they said flights were delayed 2.5 to 3 hours.

Our pilot ended up loading us on the plane about 12:30 just in case a slot opened up before 1:30. Well, it didn't. So, we just sat there for an hour before we left. We got there just in time for me to miss my flight to Reagan. Turns out the gates for the smaller United flights (from Paducah and Lexington for example) come into a totally different terminal than the main United flights. It's easily a 15 to 20 minute walk. I got an alert saying I had already been moved to my backup flight to Dulles. I went to the gate and the agent assigned my seat. I showed her my baggage claim and asked about my luggage. She assured me that my luggage would be routed automatically to Dulles on my new flight.

I got on my laptop to change my rental car arrangements from Reagan to Dulles. I also saw there was a Winter Storm Warning for Bethesda. So, I changed my hotel to the closest one to HQ. I also set up up my final night at at Hampton Inn close to Dulles so I wouldn't have a tough drive that morning.

The flight to Dulles went fine. I waited for my luggage and it never came out. I went to a kiosk and was told "It was en-route". I waited some more and finally found a United baggage person. They checked and said "Oh, your luggage is at Reagan". I was incredulous and started to make my point about how I was told "it would be rerouted to Dulles automatically". I was then told that "Well, you'll just have to go to Reagan and get it".

Well, this is not as easy as it sounds. Reagan is a good 30 mile - 45 min drive. It had started to freezing rain. Plus, I had no idea how to get there and my cell phone (with GPS) was on its last legs. It finally died on me as I got close. After several wrong turns, I finally got there. My luggage was sitting in the baggage claim office. I grabbed it and managed the stumble my way (after a few more wrong turns) back to my hotel.

The rest of the trip went fine. I went to a fine Wednesday night Bible study at Clarkeville church of Christ. The preach there was from Fulton KY. I had little trouble getting to Dulles the next day and the trip home was fine. It was sure nice to see Donna waiting for me when I got off the plane and into Barkley.

I learned some lessons. One, I have a phone charger that I could use in a car still in shrink wrap! I unwrapped that and put it in my laptop case for future use. Two, I need to be more certain of my luggage re-route next time. Three, I should have checked the conditions at O'Hare before I ever went to the airport. I could have stayed in my hotel room for a few more hours and relaxed.

There isn't much I can do about O'Hare and weather. In the winter, it's going to have a lot more issues than Memphis did. I'll have to allow for that. What disappointed me was nobody at United ever said "I'm sorry about your luggage" Their attitude was almost as if "Oh well, that's just the way it goes".

I may give them one more shot. I will give the Nashville to Baltimore route on Southwest another serious look next time though. The main disadvantage to that is at least when I do get to Paducah, I am 15 minutes from home. At Nashville, I still have a 2.5 hour drive in front of me.