My wife and I had a bit of an airline adventure this week.
We were on a Southwest flight heading back from our Ft. Lauderdale vacation Wednesday morning when, about an hour before our arrival time, the captain announced that because of weather problems in St. Louis, the flight would have to divert to Nashville. We groaned along with the other passengers.
Martha texted a couple of friends to ask if there was a lot of snow on the ground at home. They both said it wasn’t much, not even sticking to the roads. but it was very, very windy. We checked our weather app, which told us it was blowing at 20-25mph with gusts over 40mph — enough to keep a windsock at full attention. That, the pilot explained, had caused a ground halt in St. Louis, with no planes allowed to take off or land, and even if we got there, there were no empty gates to pull into.
Since we didn’t know how long the layover might be, I took out my phone and started checking to see if there were rooms at any of the airport hotels in Nashville. I didn’t book one, but saw there were plenty available, just in case. Next, I realized that Nashville is only about a four hour drive from St. Louis, so I searched to see what it would cost for a one-way car rental. Again, there were several options, and all of them were cheaper than the airport hotel rooms.
But then I remembered we had checked our bags, something we rarely do. Southwest allows two free bags per person, so we handed them over in Ft. Lauderdale. Even if they got lost, we’d have plenty of other clothes once we got home.
Unfortunately, that meant our luggage was in the cargo compartment, which the airline might not empty out in Nashville if they thought the flight might continue on after a delay of who-knows-how-many hours. So I scratched the car rental idea until further notice.
As we approached Nashville, the pilot said the crew didn’t have any details on what would happen once we got there, but a gate agent would sort things out and fill us in — particularly people who would probably miss a connection in St. Louis.
Once we got on the ground, the gate agent came onboard and told us that she’d have an update from the company in about 45 minutes and invited anyone who wanted to get off and stroll around the terminal, use bathrooms, or get food to do so — and she’d make an announcement on the airport PA when it was time to re-board. About half the passengers took advantage of that, but Martha and I stayed where we were, although I did get up and stretch my legs and back in the aisle while I had the chance.
Thirty minutes later, the folks who had gotten off returned to their seats and, once they were settled, the flight crew did a head count and discovered that one couple wasn’t back on the plane. The gate agent asked if anyone knew where they went and a guy sitting behind them said they had gone to rent a car to make the drive home. I guess they didn’t check any bags.
With that mystery solved, the pilot told us the winds had abated enough in St. Louis that we could finish the flight — 47 minutes in the air. Everything was going smoothly until we hit some major turbulence on approach for at least ten minutes in which we could feel the plane being buffeted by the wind. I’m not a nervous flyer, but my mind did go for a moment to that Delta flight that flipped over upon landing at Toronto in some heavy winds two weeks ago.
Fortunately, the pros on the flight deck maintained control all the way down to the runway and got us to an open gate with no further issues. As we were leaving, the pilot was standing in the cockpit doorway, so I made a point of thanking him. He replied, “We appreciate that.” Then, nodding towards his co-pilot, he added, “That one took both of us.”
I realized those guys had a story to tell, too. As would the couple who had opted for a rental car and probably weren’t happy when they heard we beat them to St. Louis by about three hours.