Travel Tip

I have basically been out of town the whole summer. It has been quite the challenge to keep up with this blog. I'm excited to get home and get back to normal.
I spent 7 hours in the Salt Lake airport yesterday. I won't go into ALL of the gory details..... Ok I will mention a few.....3 airplanes got cancelled, I was on and off of 2, there was a woman shoving match next to me on the plane in the isle, I had to go to the ticket counter 4 times to get new boarding passes, was personally escorted by a TSA agent through security, and they called in 4 police officers to keep peace because there were 200 people in line.
I thought it was interesting to watch how different people handled the same problem. Some freaked, some thought of better ideas, some were bullies, some had to complain to people even when they knew those people couldn't do anything to remedy the problem.
I thought to myself, since everything was handled at home and it wouldn't be a problem if I didn't get home that day so I used it as a good excuse to catch up on my to do lists, blog ideas, Christmas lists, and I wrote an hour seminar. After being out of town for 4 days I knew when I got home I would have to cook, clean, unpack etc. This was 7 hours of bonus time for myself. I watched CNN, read a good magazine, met a new friend and made plans for the next 3 months.
I did learn a great travel tip during this fiasco. We were on the first plane and the pilot stood up front and announced that the door wasn't closing properly so they were calling maintenance. We sat on the plane while they were fixing it for an hour. All of a sudden the lady next to me said they cancelled the flight! She saw the first class passengers standing up to get their luggage. She got out her itinerary with the 800 number on it and called the airline with her cell phone. She said "I am on Flight 5 and it has just been cancelled, can you put me on the next flight to Phoenix." By the time she was off the plane she was set. She didn't have to stand in line for hours. (This was the 3rd flight cancelled.) It was a brilliant move on her part and one I will do next time. Me and about 5 others ran out though security and got our tickets changed to the next flight before our planes passengers got up to the front in line.
The airlines are cutting back on flights so this scenario is going to happen more and more. My son just spent 3 hours in one of those lines in Boston when his flight was cancelled 2 weeks ago. I didn't know how to help him then.