Sunday evening, I arrived at the American Airlines ticket counter at 5pm to checkin my bags for our 6:10pm flight. Even before getting to the checkstand, we saw that our flight had been delayed till 8:40pm. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to see the boys before going to bed, but we made the most of the remaining time with our parents and headed over to the Mitsuwa Center by South Coast Plaza to have a meal of Udon and Katsu Curry instead.

This Mitsuwa center had 3 Udon stations and their service was swift and atmosphere agreeable. The Udon I had was so chewy and good especially for the price we paid. The Mitsuwa Supermarket here in San Jose has only 1 food station, and having eaten there the last time we had our little car accident, I’d give it a rating of 5 out of 10 compared to the 8 out of 10 I’d give to the Udon place we tried this time.

Upon our return to the airport, we saw that the flight was again delayed till 9:20pm. This time, we sent our parents on home and decided to just wait it out at the terminal. Well, 9:20pm came and went and at 9:40pm, we heard over the PA that due to the strict 10pm curfew (Plane wheels up by 10 sharp), American Airlines will attempt a quick turnaround of the flight and board passengers in a different order than usual to expedite the loading process. 1st Class passengers were still loaded first, followed by rows 23-32. 15-32, and so forth. The announcer also informed us in a calm but cautious tone that we may find the airplane a little messier than usual due to the expedited procedure. We boarded the plane around 9:50pm and were doing fine until a girl stopped traffic mid-plane to shove her tremendously overloaded carry-on luggage into the overhead compartment without success. I saw the flight attendant (with a near panic look on his face) rush up from the rear of the plane to guide her to a nearby row while she pulled out enough items to fit the luggage in. The flight attendant near the front of the plane announced that there was only 7 more minutes left till take off and encouragingly begged everyone to assist in the effort of taking off on time. We started taxi-ing at 1 minute till, but by the time the airplane wheels left ground, it was at least a minute after (according to my watch). Whew! I would make it home afterall. Sources say if we were grounded that night, the earliest flight anyone could take would be at 3pm since all other flights were full.

The flight itself was great…. smooth and fast (total flight time was only 57 minutes), the only funny that happened mid-flight was hearing the announcement that passengers may not receive their first choice of drinks since the caterer was unable to restock due to the expedited process. So I turned to Julia and said, “do you suppose they skipped the safety checks on the plane as well?”

At touchdown, the crew thanked the passengers profusely for their cooperation and reminded us to come again to visit on one of their better days. Julia and I assumed that these delays were possibly the direct impact of the new DST change since most flights were booked out possibly 6 months in advance, who knows.

So what did American Airlines do to compensate for the stress they put their passengers through? They updated all our Advantage Accounts with 7,000 Customer Service Miles. Well, at least we got something out of that delay.