Cubreporter (Cubreporter)
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 10:39 am: | |
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
The Orange County Register
Passenger inconvenience felt far and wide
By CINDY CARCAMO
Meetings were rescheduled. Rides were arranged. Dinners back home went uneaten.
For hundreds of passengers Tuesday at John Wayne Airport, a radio failure at a Federal Aviation Administration control station was a major inconvenience.
Stephen L. Jenkins, visiting from Sacramento on a business trip, glared at the departure screen.
"Flight 1464 - delayed," it read in bold yellow."This is screwed up," Jenkins quipped.
After a long day, he was ready to return home to his wife and a hot meal. He'd heard of the delays at Los Angeles International Airport but thought JWA might not be affected.
"I'm just going to have to eat a cold dinner, call my wife and take it in stride," he said.
Travelers stayed glued to their cellular phones during the almost four-hour delay, asking family members for updates, negotiating with airline representatives or asking friends to pick them up.
Jeffrey Nelson, 36, a software salesman fromDenver, discovered that his 8 p.m. flight would be canceled.
He set his luggage down in the middle of the terminal and created a makeshift computer station.
One hand called up phone numbers on his Palm Pilot while the other re-arranged the next day's meetings on his laptop.
Kathy Moss, 35, of San Francisco stood at the curb to hail a taxi back to her hotel. She had devoured her prime rib dinner in 20 minutes at a nearby restaurant so she could make her 6 p.m. flight.
She wished she'd savored it.
She was rebooked on a 6 a.m. flight today, but the airline employee "didn't look too hopeful."
Downstairs in baggage claim, Jeff Thompson, 22, of Huntington Beach waited for his roommate's flight from Philadelphia.
A woman nearby told him the flight had been re-routed to Phoenix.
"I'm going to go home," Thompson said. "He can call me when he gets in."
Copyright 2004 The Orange County Register | |