The Idea Blog

Over the last couple of years, I’ve increased my driving radius to prevent having to fly. I’ve told others it’s up to seven hours; that is, rather than connect through Charlotte (USAir) or Atlanta (Delta) to arrive in a third city, I’ll more likely drive now and avoid the hassles flying entails.

Well, I should have followed my own prescription for a trip to Birmingham last weekend. Thursday departure wasn’t really a problem, but the dire warnings news reports have delivered about summer travel turned out to be accurate for my Sunday afternoon return.

I arrived at BHM at 2:00p for a 4:30 departure. There was no earlier flight, the gate agent said, but also no problem with the departure time for my flight. After a couple of cold ones and a quick tally to the spreadsheet upon which I documented our group’s four days of golf, I checked USAir’s web site for “flight status.” It showed a two-hour delay for departure, obviously throwing my connection in Charlotte for Charleston out the emergency exit door. By the time a gate agent arrived on the scene - less than 30 minutes prior to the scheduled departure - I was first in line but SOL. All other flights to Charleston were grossly over-booked; in fact, my earliest connection from Charlotte to Charleston would be the next day at … 11a.

“Would you be able to fly to some other city?”

“How about Columbia?”

“No, sorry. No space available ’til tomorrow.”

“Savannah?” (That’s 2.5 hours from home.)

“No, sorry.”

I ended up in Myrtle Beach, 75 miles and $150 in rental car fees from home. I pulled into the driveway at 1:30a on Monday morning.

Ah, the joys of commercial air travel. At least some of my traveling companions found a way to while away the time while waiting for our late, very late departure out of Birmingham.