Took a half day off of work and hurried home to get the last of my things packed up. Dad picked us up, and brought us to the airport! Used a buddy pass for matt, as there were 20 Delta1 seats open and 10 people on standby. I forgot my bag of FA treats, on the dining room table. Ugh! But anyway— we Got to our gate (thank goodness matt finally has global entry so he can get pre-check too). Waited patiently at the HiLo Diner right next door and Bjorn came to say hi! With an hour prior to take off, all standbys were cleared into Delta one! Wahoooo! Matt and I even had seats together. Only problem— their third pilot was stranded in MSN due to the snow storm. But the remaining two pilots opted to waive the need for a third pilot and we were going to be taking off! We board, have our welcome drinks and then wait for push back. With only 2 pilots they have an 8 hour block limit (push back to park) and it is a 7 hour flight to London. They had 4 de-ice trucks ready for us and we go to push back. Matt says the captain didnt take off the parking break because the tug busted the shear pin, so then they needed to get a new tug bar, and try again, but the clock was already ticking. Finally we get pushed back, the captain starts up the engines, and pulls right back into the gate (he’s gotta get paid). Maintenance comes on board and talks to the pilots, but they dont have enough block time so they time out, and they dont have any spare crew sitting around to fly the plane. So EVERYONE has to get off, and wait in the gate area for more details (delta is very good at not cancelling flights, just delaying for long periods of times… gotta keep that completion rate high). Delay , delay , delay then the FAs and pilots get off…. And if the FAs get off we know we aren’t going anywhere tonight. Plane delayed until 630p Thursday. Which means we miss our planned connection to S.Africa and have to figure out what to do. Daddies comes back to pick us up, I’m almost in tears (never did we think we would get matt back into D1… ever again… and we had it! Seats together even.) but now ANYONE can list for the flight tomorrow. 25 Seats open, We cleared at 15/16 on the list Wednesday night, so hopefully not too many people notice the new time for this flight. I have the service counter help rebook us both on the Thursday flight, and we head home to replan EVERYTHING. Submit new staff traveler requests to see what our Zed Options look like. And go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day.
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