I should be on an airplane right now. Unfortunately, my flight got canceled due to mechanical problems or something. There were absolutely no seats available on flights to my destination, or to the next nearest city. There were no seats on my airline, nor any other airline. There were no seats from the airport I from which I was meant to depart, nor from the next closest airport, nor from any airport within a 4-hour drive. Only the leg of my journey from here to layover city was affected, but there were no seats to layover city in time for the final leg of the flight. There was just no way to get me to Conference City today. At all. Could I BE any more pissed?!
So, my first airline refunded half my fare and I booked a new flight myself on Southwest, which apparently does not have ticket agreements with the other airline. Thus, I had to pay for the ticket, which was $185 more than my original fare. I will get to Conference City around 9 am. Our special session, which I am moderating, starts after lunch. I should make it with enough time, but I will feel rushed and tense instead of (sort of) relaxed and in control. The original plan was to arrive around 3 pm today, go to the hotel, and finalize details for tomorrow with my friend/session co-organizer. We were going to decide exactly what I'd say at the start and end of the session, what she would say after the break, what we hoped to achieve if we got time to meet with the speakers later in the day. She was going to practice her talk for me, since I am more expert in parts of her project than she is (it's new to her, but is my bread and butter). I was also going to have time to iron my clothes for the week, suss out what talks to see, and have dinner with other scientist-friends. Instead, I'll arrive in the morning, rush to the hotel to drop off my bag if I have time, or else go right to the conference center. I have to register, hang my poster (which is also scheduled for tomorrow), attend moderator training, finalize the deets with my friend, eat lunch, and get to the session. It will all be fine, I'm sure, but not how I wanted it to go. Stupid airplane.
14 comments:
Good luck with everything! I hope by the end of the day tomorrow you can manage to laugh it off over a glass of wine. Most of all, hope the meeting is a good one - fun and productive.
Thanks, SciWo. I hope so too.
Good luck - I had precisely the same problem when trying to get to my last conference - it all worked out in the end if that's any comfort to you. You're not flying United by any chance are you?
Dude. That BLOWS.
I hope everything works out, I can't believe there was no seat available at all. That's a shame.
AA - that is comforting, and I too hope it works out. It was American, not United.
Ruchi - indeed!
MTS, when I bought the ticket >8 weeks in advance, the tickets were selling out from under me. I'd choose an itinerary and then the price would jump or the seat would be gone by the time I entered the payment information. Conference City is not huge, so I guess that 2000-4000 extra people all flying in over a ~36 h period probably did fill up a lot of planes, especially because many of them probably had connections in my city. And I guess the airlines have been trimming the fat for a while. It just sucks for me this time. :(
Ok, that just sucks. I'm sorry. I'm sure that you'll do fine, though. You've been talking about this symposium for a while now (it must've been a while, since I remember it! :-) -- as an aside how awkward are smiley faces inside of parenthesis?) and I'd imagine that you've been thinking about it for a while. So, I'm sure that everything will be fine.
Anyhow, I second Science Woman in the have a glass of wine tomorrow night!
gaargh! I feel you. but at some point you learn to live with these delays....
horrible!
But I am quite sure that your session will be absolutely awesome!!! I also remember you talked about it, must be great it is now finally coming into actual existence, congratulations!
So sorry. Hope you can keep your stress level down. Can you call your co-organizer and at least talk through some of the details? That might help you feel less stressed about tomorrow. Or make a list yourself of what you were going to talk about.
argh, that sucks! I hope your travel goes smoothly now, and that the conference and your session are great!
Oh noes! I hope you made it to your session and are relaxing now!
Aarrgghh, how stressful!
Update please - how did it all go?!
Wow. All that frustration and no blood shed. I'm impressed. I hope everything worked out for you.
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