For future travel planning purposes, here’s a helpful hint from Jeremiah and his lovely girlfriend Emily, who recently tried to travel to Roanoke out of New York by way of LaGuardia airport, via United.
Em’s original flight out was to have been 7:30pm on Thursday, but due to weather (Emily reported sky was clear at the airport) her flight was delayed. Then it was cancelled. She managed to rebook on a later flight, and boarded her plane a little after eight that evening.
She remained on the plane for over an hour while the technical crew attempted to fix a “mechanical issue.” This ultimately failed, and the flight was canceled. No other flights out were available, and a connecting flight that might have taken her was also canceled because enough staff to fly could not be found.
After standing in line for over an hour, Emily managed to get transferred to a US Airways one-way non-stop flight into Roanoke Friday morning at 7:25. At 4:30am, after no sleep and being at LGA for over 10 hours, she saw that her 7:25 flight had been canceled due to mechanical problems. Multiple attempts to find a different flight that isn’t canceled or booked have failed, and Emily is now attempting to get a flight out of JFK. The first available flight out is at 12:25.
The lessons are thus: do not flight United or US Air, and do not fly in or out of LaGuardia Airport. Emily’s experience is not necessarily indicative of the status of most air travel. But it’s certainly enough to sour one to particular agents with whom one might have had to deal.